The scalding report of the Iraq Inquiry, or Chilcot report, released this week about Tony Blair’s decision to support George W. Bush in his drive to invade Iraq showed how bad ideas can set off devastating trains of impacts that echo down the decades.

Blair was widely villainized in his country for putting the “special relationship” with the U.S. above much safer options of containment and multilateralism. But where did the U.S.’s “bad idea” come from?

Fifteen years ago this spring, the United States took a determinative turn when President George W. Bush, in his second week in office, created the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG). The group was tasked with coming up with a solution on what to do about the U.S.’s heavy dependence on oil from the unstable Middle East.

The NEPDG never reconsidered U.S. or global dependence on petroleum. Instead, seeing a future of relentlessly increasing global demand for fossil fuels, the White House believed global oil production would have to increase dramatically by 2025 for the U.S. and the world to remain economically stable.

Looking back, one could argue that this “oil escalation” strategy failed on all counts, exacerbating instability in the Middle East and setting the U.S. and the world back a decade and a half in the fight against climate change.

Now, we face the retirement of aging coal and nuclear power plants, and a conjuncture where low oil prices are driving a new boom in the Middle East where extraction is the cheapest in the world, as just reported by the Internation Energy Agency. This is a pivotal moment in which we face a choice similar to the one that President Bush faced then: double down on what we know (fossil fuels) by building a new generation of natural gas wells, pipelines, and power plants to power our inefficient vehicles and buildings, or, make a decisive move toward renewables and efficiency.

Ominously declaring that “Energy security must be a priority of U.S. trade and foreign policy,” the NEP’s overarching goals were to increase global oil production, diversify our foreign oil suppliers, and clear away any economic and political obstacles that might get in the way of U.S. procurement of petroleum. This would, of course, keep the country dependent on foreign oil and the companies that sell it, but would hopefully improve national security by maintaining global economic stability and reducing U.S. dependence on any single foreign oil-producing nation.

The direction the NEPDG took our country in was not new, given that U.S. energy policy has committed the United States to heavy petroleum use since at least World War II, when the U.S. dramatically depleted its domestic oil supplies to win the war. President Franklin Roosevelt was so concerned about declining domestic oil reserves that he declared U.S. access to Saudi oil to be a vital national interest. The centrality of oil to U.S. national interests and strategic planning has been reaffirmed by every U.S. president since then. Presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter, for example, all developed geopolitical doctrines designed either wholly or in part to protect U.S. oil interests in the Middle East, with each of these presidents pledging extensive military aid and training to U.S. allies in the region. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Carter warned potential enemies that the U.S. was willing to use military force to protect its regional interests.

But by 2001, when George W. Bush took office, there was scientific consensus on the seriousness of climate change, ample evidence of the perils of petro-politics, and nearly two decades of experience with renewable and energy efficiency technologies. So President Bush’s decision to maintain our dependence on petroleum and to continue viewing access to oil as a top national security issue did not just set in train a series of events that resulted in the U.S.-led war in Iraq—a war that took a million lives, ran up over a trillion in U.S. national debt, led to the rise of ISIS, and forced millions of people from their homes, destabilizing the region. It also kept the United States, the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, from reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, U.S. emissions increased until the Great Recession of 2008, with fossil fuel emissions relatively stable since then.

Needed: A Truly New National Energy Policy

Because greenhouse gases accumulate and persist in the atmosphere, solving the climate change crisis becomes increasingly difficult every year that we fail to seriously reduce our fossil fuel consumption. It is therefore important to remember and learn from such a key moment in history when our political and economic leaders had an opportunity to join Japan and Europe in turning sharply toward efficiency, conservation and renewable energy, or to double down on fossil fuels. Unfortunately, the Bush administration made a devastating choice: rather than leading the world to a greener future, the Bush White House set the U.S. and the world back 15 years in their attempts to rein in the climate crisis.

Today, a whole generation of coal and nuclear power stations is closing, and we face a stark choice. Like Bush and Cheney and the NEPDG, we can buy into the argument that fossil fuels are irreplaceable and that natural gas-fired power stations are a critical “bridge” to a lower-carbon future. But if we accept this stance, each facility we build will lock us into decades more dependency and risk, pushing us past safe ecological limits without addressing the inevitable transformation that the science of global warming suggests we have to make to reach zero net emissions in startlingly few years. Low priced Middle East oil is making this transition more difficult as Americans buy SUVs and build inefficient homes, so ambitious federal policy is urgently required. We can develop a full, transparent, imaginative, and forward-looking new national energy policy that moves us to a zero net emissions future. Our decisions must fully weigh the trillions of dollars in costs that business as usual will entail: from using our military to maintain U.S. access to and control over oil, the price of rescuing and resettling climate refugees, and the soaring burden of rebuilding the world’s coastal cities on higher ground.

Authors

The scalding report of the Iraq Inquiry, or Chilcot report, released this week about Tony Blair’s decision to support George W. Bush in his drive to invade Iraq showed how bad ideas can set off devastating trains of impacts that echo down the decades.

Blair was widely villainized in his country for putting the “special relationship” with the U.S. above much safer options of containment and multilateralism. But where did the U.S.’s “bad idea” come from?

Fifteen years ago this spring, the United States took a determinative turn when President George W. Bush, in his second week in office, created the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG). The group was tasked with coming up with a solution on what to do about the U.S.’s heavy dependence on oil from the unstable Middle East.

The NEPDG never reconsidered U.S. or global dependence on petroleum. Instead, seeing a future of relentlessly increasing global demand for fossil fuels, the White House believed global oil production would have to increase dramatically by 2025 for the U.S. and the world to remain economically stable.

Looking back, one could argue that this “oil escalation” strategy failed on all counts, exacerbating instability in the Middle East and setting the U.S. and the world back a decade and a half in the fight against climate change.

Now, we face the retirement of aging coal and nuclear power plants, and a conjuncture where low oil prices are driving a new boom in the Middle East where extraction is the cheapest in the world, as just reported by the Internation Energy Agency. This is a pivotal moment in which we face a choice similar to the one that President Bush faced then: double down on what we know (fossil fuels) by building a new generation of natural gas wells, pipelines, and power plants to power our inefficient vehicles and buildings, or, make a decisive move toward renewables and efficiency.

Ominously declaring that “Energy security must be a priority of U.S. trade and foreign policy,” the NEP’s overarching goals were to increase global oil production, diversify our foreign oil suppliers, and clear away any economic and political obstacles that might get in the way of U.S. procurement of petroleum. This would, of course, keep the country dependent on foreign oil and the companies that sell it, but would hopefully improve national security by maintaining global economic stability and reducing U.S. dependence on any single foreign oil-producing nation.

The direction the NEPDG took our country in was not new, given that U.S. energy policy has committed the United States to heavy petroleum use since at least World War II, when the U.S. dramatically depleted its domestic oil supplies to win the war. President Franklin Roosevelt was so concerned about declining domestic oil reserves that he declared U.S. access to Saudi oil to be a vital national interest. The centrality of oil to U.S. national interests and strategic planning has been reaffirmed by every U.S. president since then. Presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter, for example, all developed geopolitical doctrines designed either wholly or in part to protect U.S. oil interests in the Middle East, with each of these presidents pledging extensive military aid and training to U.S. allies in the region. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Carter warned potential enemies that the U.S. was willing to use military force to protect its regional interests.

But by 2001, when George W. Bush took office, there was scientific consensus on the seriousness of climate change, ample evidence of the perils of petro-politics, and nearly two decades of experience with renewable and energy efficiency technologies. So President Bush’s decision to maintain our dependence on petroleum and to continue viewing access to oil as a top national security issue did not just set in train a series of events that resulted in the U.S.-led war in Iraq—a war that took a million lives, ran up over a trillion in U.S. national debt, led to the rise of ISIS, and forced millions of people from their homes, destabilizing the region. It also kept the United States, the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, from reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, U.S. emissions increased until the Great Recession of 2008, with fossil fuel emissions relatively stable since then.

Needed: A Truly New National Energy Policy

Because greenhouse gases accumulate and persist in the atmosphere, solving the climate change crisis becomes increasingly difficult every year that we fail to seriously reduce our fossil fuel consumption. It is therefore important to remember and learn from such a key moment in history when our political and economic leaders had an opportunity to join Japan and Europe in turning sharply toward efficiency, conservation and renewable energy, or to double down on fossil fuels. Unfortunately, the Bush administration made a devastating choice: rather than leading the world to a greener future, the Bush White House set the U.S. and the world back 15 years in their attempts to rein in the climate crisis.

Today, a whole generation of coal and nuclear power stations is closing, and we face a stark choice. Like Bush and Cheney and the NEPDG, we can buy into the argument that fossil fuels are irreplaceable and that natural gas-fired power stations are a critical “bridge” to a lower-carbon future. But if we accept this stance, each facility we build will lock us into decades more dependency and risk, pushing us past safe ecological limits without addressing the inevitable transformation that the science of global warming suggests we have to make to reach zero net emissions in startlingly few years. Low priced Middle East oil is making this transition more difficult as Americans buy SUVs and build inefficient homes, so ambitious federal policy is urgently required. We can develop a full, transparent, imaginative, and forward-looking new national energy policy that moves us to a zero net emissions future. Our decisions must fully weigh the trillions of dollars in costs that business as usual will entail: from using our military to maintain U.S. access to and control over oil, the price of rescuing and resettling climate refugees, and the soaring burden of rebuilding the world’s coastal cities on higher ground.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2016/06/21-optimal-solar-subsidy-policy-dong?rssid=environment{74DA7F4A-0022-446B-BAD1-EB22E32F12F6}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/162962232/0/brookingsrss/topics/environment~Optimal-solar-subsidy-policy-design-and-incentive-passthrough-evaluation-using-US-California-as-an-exampleOptimal solar subsidy policy design and incentive pass-through evaluation: using US California as an example

Renewable energy is an important source to tackle against climate change, as the latest IPCC report has pointed out. However, due to the existence of multiple market failures such as negative externalities of fossil fuels and knowledge spillovers of new technology, government subsidies are still needed to develop renewable energy, such as solar photovoltaic (PV) cells. In the United States, there have been various forms of subsidies for PV, varying from the federal level to the state level, and from the city level to the utility level. California, as the pioneer of solar PV development, has put forward the biggest state-level subsidy program for PV, the California Solar Initiative (CSI). The CSI has planned to spend around $2.2 Billion in 2007–2016 to install roughly 2 GW PV capacity, with the average subsidy level as high as $1.1/W. How to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and incentive pass-through of this program are the two major research questions we are pursing.

Our cost-effectiveness analysis is based on a constrained optimization model that we developed, where the objective is to install as much PV capacity as possible under a fixed budget constraint. Both the analytical and computational results suggest that due to a strong peer effect and the learning-by-doing effect, one can shift subsides from later periods to early periods so that the final PV installed capacity can be increased by 8.1% (or 32 MW). However, if the decision-maker has other policy objectives or constraints in mind, such as maintaining the policy certainty, then, the optimally calculated subsidy policy would look like the CSI.

As to the incentive pass-through question, we took a structural approach and in addition used the method of regression discontinuity (RD). While in general, the incentive pass-through rate depends on the curvature of the demand and supply curve and the level of market competition, our two estimations indicate that the incentive pass-through for the CSI program is almost complete. In other words, almost all of the incentive has been enjoyed by the customer, and the PV installers did not retain much. Based on the RD design, we observe that PV installers tend to consider the CSI incentive as exogenous to their pricing decision.

The relative good performance of the CSI in terms of both the cost-effectiveness and the incentive pass-through aspect are tightly related to its policy design and program management. International speaking, the biggest challenge for the design of any PV subsidy program is the quick running out of the budget, and in the end, it looks like customers are rushing for the subsidy. Such rushing behavior is a clear indication of higher-than-needed incentive levels. Due to the policy rigidity and rapid PV technological change, the PV subsidy policy may lag behind the PV cost decline; and as a result, rational customers could rush for any unnecessarily high subsidy.

Due to the high uncertainty and unpredictability of future PV costs, the CSI put forward a new design that links the incentive level change and the installed capacity goal fulfillment. Specifically, the CSI has designed nine steps to achieve its policy goal; at each step, there is a PV capacity goal that corresponds to an incentive level. Once the capacity goal is finished, the incentive level will decrease to the next lower level. Furthermore, to maintain the policy certainty, the CSI regulated that every step-wise change in the incentive level should not be higher than $0.45/W, nor smaller than $0.05/W, together with other three constraints.

A good subsidy policy not only requires flexible policy design to respond to fast-changing environment, but also demands an efficient program management system, digitalized if possible. For the CSI, the authority has contracted out a third-party to maintain a good database system for the program. Specifically, the database has documented in detail every PV system that customers requested. Key data fields include 22 important dates during the PV installation process, customers’ zip code, city, utility and county information, and various characteristics of the PV system such as price, system size, incentive, PV module and installer. All information is publicly available, which to some extent fills in the information gap held by customers and fosters the market competition among PV installers. For customers to receive the incentive, their PV systems have to pass the inspection of the local government, and also to be interconnected to the grid. On the supply side, the CSI has also certified and created a list of PV installers that every customer can choose from.

Although the CSI has ended in 2014 due to fast PV cost reduction starting from 2009, its experience has been transferred to other areas in the United States and in Europe. It is highly possible that other similar new technologies and products (e.g. the electric car and the battery) can adopt the CSI policy design, too. In summary, a good and successful policy may need to be simply, clear, credible, foreseeable, flexible, end-able, and incentive-compatible. The PV subsidy policy in China still has a long way to go when compared to the CSI.

Authors

Changgui Dong

]]>
Mon, 04 Jul 2016 14:30:00 -0400Changgui Dong

Renewable energy is an important source to tackle against climate change, as the latest IPCC report has pointed out. However, due to the existence of multiple market failures such as negative externalities of fossil fuels and knowledge spillovers of new technology, government subsidies are still needed to develop renewable energy, such as solar photovoltaic (PV) cells. In the United States, there have been various forms of subsidies for PV, varying from the federal level to the state level, and from the city level to the utility level. California, as the pioneer of solar PV development, has put forward the biggest state-level subsidy program for PV, the California Solar Initiative (CSI). The CSI has planned to spend around $2.2 Billion in 2007–2016 to install roughly 2 GW PV capacity, with the average subsidy level as high as $1.1/W. How to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and incentive pass-through of this program are the two major research questions we are pursing.

Our cost-effectiveness analysis is based on a constrained optimization model that we developed, where the objective is to install as much PV capacity as possible under a fixed budget constraint. Both the analytical and computational results suggest that due to a strong peer effect and the learning-by-doing effect, one can shift subsides from later periods to early periods so that the final PV installed capacity can be increased by 8.1% (or 32 MW). However, if the decision-maker has other policy objectives or constraints in mind, such as maintaining the policy certainty, then, the optimally calculated subsidy policy would look like the CSI.

As to the incentive pass-through question, we took a structural approach and in addition used the method of regression discontinuity (RD). While in general, the incentive pass-through rate depends on the curvature of the demand and supply curve and the level of market competition, our two estimations indicate that the incentive pass-through for the CSI program is almost complete. In other words, almost all of the incentive has been enjoyed by the customer, and the PV installers did not retain much. Based on the RD design, we observe that PV installers tend to consider the CSI incentive as exogenous to their pricing decision.

The relative good performance of the CSI in terms of both the cost-effectiveness and the incentive pass-through aspect are tightly related to its policy design and program management. International speaking, the biggest challenge for the design of any PV subsidy program is the quick running out of the budget, and in the end, it looks like customers are rushing for the subsidy. Such rushing behavior is a clear indication of higher-than-needed incentive levels. Due to the policy rigidity and rapid PV technological change, the PV subsidy policy may lag behind the PV cost decline; and as a result, rational customers could rush for any unnecessarily high subsidy.

Due to the high uncertainty and unpredictability of future PV costs, the CSI put forward a new design that links the incentive level change and the installed capacity goal fulfillment. Specifically, the CSI has designed nine steps to achieve its policy goal; at each step, there is a PV capacity goal that corresponds to an incentive level. Once the capacity goal is finished, the incentive level will decrease to the next lower level. Furthermore, to maintain the policy certainty, the CSI regulated that every step-wise change in the incentive level should not be higher than $0.45/W, nor smaller than $0.05/W, together with other three constraints.

A good subsidy policy not only requires flexible policy design to respond to fast-changing environment, but also demands an efficient program management system, digitalized if possible. For the CSI, the authority has contracted out a third-party to maintain a good database system for the program. Specifically, the database has documented in detail every PV system that customers requested. Key data fields include 22 important dates during the PV installation process, customers’ zip code, city, utility and county information, and various characteristics of the PV system such as price, system size, incentive, PV module and installer. All information is publicly available, which to some extent fills in the information gap held by customers and fosters the market competition among PV installers. For customers to receive the incentive, their PV systems have to pass the inspection of the local government, and also to be interconnected to the grid. On the supply side, the CSI has also certified and created a list of PV installers that every customer can choose from.

Although the CSI has ended in 2014 due to fast PV cost reduction starting from 2009, its experience has been transferred to other areas in the United States and in Europe. It is highly possible that other similar new technologies and products (e.g. the electric car and the battery) can adopt the CSI policy design, too. In summary, a good and successful policy may need to be simply, clear, credible, foreseeable, flexible, end-able, and incentive-compatible. The PV subsidy policy in China still has a long way to go when compared to the CSI.

Authors

Changgui Dong

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2016/06/29-volkswagen-emissions-settlement-roberts?rssid=environment{DBCA88D0-033D-4003-AE99-4FC186145D0B}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/161992950/0/brookingsrss/topics/environment~Why-I-like-the-Volkswagen-emissions-settlementWhy I like the Volkswagen emissions settlement

When the Volkswagen emissions control scandal broke into the headlines in September, I wrote here how I felt like my lifelong love affair with VW had been violated. As an environmentalist, owning a Jetta that zipped along for 42 miles on a gallon of diesel was the best of both worlds. And it was a lie. My wife, Holly Flood, said she felt like she’d been “duped,” and since then she’s vowed never to buy another VW.

What I like is the combination of individual and collective compensation for this crime.

Making it right with the customers

On the individual side, if this deal is approved by the judge in early October, my family will get our 2009 Jetta TDI sedan fixed for free (if the Environmental Protection Agency approves the fix), and we’ll get a check for $5,100. Holly says that’s perfect timing for a down payment on a new car (which will not be a VW).

I’m pushing for a plug-in electric hybrid, which we can charge with renewable energy we get off the grid from our local provider, People’s Power & Light. In our case, for every electron we use, they pay to have one electron put in from wind power somewhere right here in New England. Hopefully we’ll have variable pricing of electricity by then, allowing us to charge the car when the juice is cheapest, like when the wind blows at night but few people are using much electricity.

The unknown for us is whether the VW fix will noticeably harm the performance of the car. I’m guessing it will, perhaps in its remarkable torque, in its gas mileage, or both. But at this point the car has tons of my wife’s commuting miles on it, so we’re hanging on to it as the in-town backup car. Under the settlement we could get an extra $7k and give up the car entirely. That may be tempting, as it’s at that point where it’s getting substantially more expensive to maintain, and the Kelley Blue Book value is around $6k. They apparently aren’t lowballing us.

Making it right with the public

The collective part of this agreement is actually more interesting.

VW agreed to pay $4.7 billion into environmental programs, which in my estimation will eliminate more harm than they created. One estimate guessed that scores of premature deaths occurred in the U.S. from VW’s “defeat devices” that shut off emissions controls when they were not being tested. Most of the deaths were probably in California, where there were many more sales of diesels than elsewhere in the country. (Of course in Europe the concentration of diesels is much greater and the Guardian put the number of deaths at thousands in the U.K. alone.)

One part of this fund will go to replace diesel buses with electric ones. This will measurably improve air quality in inner cities, the precise places where extra sooty VWs were causing ill health and premature deaths with their NOx emissions. Another part will go to install electric vehicle charging stations in California. This helps overcome the “chicken and egg” problem of people not being willing to switch to electric vehicles for fear of running out of juice. The settlement says that “Volkswagen must spend $2 billion to promote non-polluting cars (“zero emissions vehicles” or “ZEV”), over and above any amount Volkswagen previously planned to spend on such technology.” That counterfactual will probably be impossible to prove, but the idea here is fairness.

A case of how America deals with environmentally criminal corporations

Sociologically, this is a fascinating case, because it reveals how our society resolves scandals that killed people through knowing contamination of the environment. As Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates harshly put it, "By duping regulators, Volkswagen turned nearly half a million American drivers into unwitting accomplices in an unprecedented assault on our environment." There are individuals inside this company who deserve criminal prosecution, but apparently most of the thousands of other employees did not know what was going on.

The corporate response has been interesting, and seems to vary sharply from how most U.S. auto firms have dealt with similar lawsuits and scandals in the past. VW did not drag out the battle, but set aside $16 billion immediately as a loss, and then settled rather generously with us. (This spring they had already given us a $500 gift card and $500 in repairs in what was essentially hush money.)

VW’s response to this crisis was creative, forward-looking, and ultimately pro-social. Just a week or so ago they announced that their new business model was to be in electrics: They announced they’d be rolling out 31 electric vehicles in the coming years. This is a remarkable turn for a company that pushed diesels for decades as the solution to climate change. This is what it looks like when a massive corporation whose reputation was built on trust and belief in the integrity of a brand seeks to battle its way back into a changing market.

Spending billions on charging stations and replacing diesel buses may make immediate sense—can we say if this is helping avoid premature deaths or it is merely crass self-interest? Does it matter?

Of course it does. But my first impression of what VW did this week was of a fair deal that was not just lining my pocket. It was helping us get off fossil fuels as a society and benefiting human health and the environment in a substantial way. And by rebuilding a major employer in Germany, the U.S., and around the world into one that might be a part of the solution to climate change, this is a significant and fairly brilliant business move to position the company for the next half century.

Or am I merely a sucker for my old flame?

Authors

When the Volkswagen emissions control scandal broke into the headlines in September, I wrote here how I felt like my lifelong love affair with VW had been violated. As an environmentalist, owning a Jetta that zipped along for 42 miles on a gallon of diesel was the best of both worlds. And it was a lie. My wife, Holly Flood, said she felt like she’d been “duped,” and since then she’s vowed never to buy another VW.

What I like is the combination of individual and collective compensation for this crime.

Making it right with the customers

On the individual side, if this deal is approved by the judge in early October, my family will get our 2009 Jetta TDI sedan fixed for free (if the Environmental Protection Agency approves the fix), and we’ll get a check for $5,100. Holly says that’s perfect timing for a down payment on a new car (which will not be a VW).

I’m pushing for a plug-in electric hybrid, which we can charge with renewable energy we get off the grid from our local provider, People’s Power & Light. In our case, for every electron we use, they pay to have one electron put in from wind power somewhere right here in New England. Hopefully we’ll have variable pricing of electricity by then, allowing us to charge the car when the juice is cheapest, like when the wind blows at night but few people are using much electricity.

The unknown for us is whether the VW fix will noticeably harm the performance of the car. I’m guessing it will, perhaps in its remarkable torque, in its gas mileage, or both. But at this point the car has tons of my wife’s commuting miles on it, so we’re hanging on to it as the in-town backup car. Under the settlement we could get an extra $7k and give up the car entirely. That may be tempting, as it’s at that point where it’s getting substantially more expensive to maintain, and the Kelley Blue Book value is around $6k. They apparently aren’t lowballing us.

Making it right with the public

The collective part of this agreement is actually more interesting.

VW agreed to pay $4.7 billion into environmental programs, which in my estimation will eliminate more harm than they created. One estimate guessed that scores of premature deaths occurred in the U.S. from VW’s “defeat devices” that shut off emissions controls when they were not being tested. Most of the deaths were probably in California, where there were many more sales of diesels than elsewhere in the country. (Of course in Europe the concentration of diesels is much greater and the Guardian put the number of deaths at thousands in the U.K. alone.)

One part of this fund will go to replace diesel buses with electric ones. This will measurably improve air quality in inner cities, the precise places where extra sooty VWs were causing ill health and premature deaths with their NOx emissions. Another part will go to install electric vehicle charging stations in California. This helps overcome the “chicken and egg” problem of people not being willing to switch to electric vehicles for fear of running out of juice. The settlement says that “Volkswagen must spend $2 billion to promote non-polluting cars (“zero emissions vehicles” or “ZEV”), over and above any amount Volkswagen previously planned to spend on such technology.” That counterfactual will probably be impossible to prove, but the idea here is fairness.

A case of how America deals with environmentally criminal corporations

Sociologically, this is a fascinating case, because it reveals how our society resolves scandals that killed people through knowing contamination of the environment. As Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates harshly put it, "By duping regulators, Volkswagen turned nearly half a million American drivers into unwitting accomplices in an unprecedented assault on our environment." There are individuals inside this company who deserve criminal prosecution, but apparently most of the thousands of other employees did not know what was going on.

The corporate response has been interesting, and seems to vary sharply from how most U.S. auto firms have dealt with similar lawsuits and scandals in the past. VW did not drag out the battle, but set aside $16 billion immediately as a loss, and then settled rather generously with us. (This spring they had already given us a $500 gift card and $500 in repairs in what was essentially hush money.)

VW’s response to this crisis was creative, forward-looking, and ultimately pro-social. Just a week or so ago they announced that their new business model was to be in electrics: They announced they’d be rolling out 31 electric vehicles in the coming years. This is a remarkable turn for a company that pushed diesels for decades as the solution to climate change. This is what it looks like when a massive corporation whose reputation was built on trust and belief in the integrity of a brand seeks to battle its way back into a changing market.

Spending billions on charging stations and replacing diesel buses may make immediate sense—can we say if this is helping avoid premature deaths or it is merely crass self-interest? Does it matter?

Of course it does. But my first impression of what VW did this week was of a fair deal that was not just lining my pocket. It was helping us get off fossil fuels as a society and benefiting human health and the environment in a substantial way. And by rebuilding a major employer in Germany, the U.S., and around the world into one that might be a part of the solution to climate change, this is a significant and fairly brilliant business move to position the company for the next half century.

Or am I merely a sucker for my old flame?

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2016/06/sustainable-infrastructure-public-policy-qureshi?rssid=environment{15BF6FFE-87A3-4BD3-81AA-330C59932C61}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/162201318/0/brookingsrss/topics/environment~Meeting-the-challenge-of-sustainable-infrastructure-The-role-of-public-policyMeeting the challenge of sustainable infrastructure: The role of public policy

The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris
agreement on climate action present a unique opportunity to set the world
on a path towards better and more sustainable development outcomes. Delivering
sustainable infrastructure at scale lies at the heart of this agenda.
Infrastructure is a major driver of growth and inclusive development. Delivered
in more sustainable ways, it is also key to tackling climate change,
as it currently accounts for around 60 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions. This means investing more, and better, in renewable energy,
cleaner transport, efficient and resilient water systems, and smarter cities.

The world will need to invest upwards of $6 trillion annually in sustainable
infrastructure in the next 15 years, more than double the current level. As
much as three-quarters of the incremental investment will need to take place
in emerging and developing economies, with the largest part in middle-income
countries. This presents a great challenge in mobilizing resources and
better integrating climate sustainability in infrastructure. Strong and concerted
actions will be needed across public and private sectors, and at national
and international levels, including important transformations in the way
infrastructure investment is developed, financed, and implemented. More
than half of the financing will need to be mobilized from the private sector.

Public policy has a central role to play in meeting this challenge, both because
the public sector itself is a major investor in infrastructure and because
public policy provides signals and sets the regulatory and institutional
framework that influence the actions of private investors and consumers.
Soundness, clarity, and credibility of public policy are especially important
for infrastructure investments, given their longevity, public good characteristics,
associated externalities, and inevitable and intimate links to government
policies. There are four key roles for public policy:

Articulating national strategies for sustainable infrastructure. Sustainability
must be fully integrated in national strategies and plans;
addressing one group of projects at a time will not do. The G-20 can provide leadership in setting out clear and
coherent national strategies for sustainable
infrastructure, linked to intended
nationally determined contributions (INDCs)
announced ahead of the Paris meeting.
National infrastructure strategies
should in turn be embedded in overall
national investment and growth strategies
and macroeconomic frameworks.

Improving the policy environment. In getting
prices right to shift incentive structures
towards low-carbon infrastructure,
the highest priority attaches to removal of
fossil-fuel subsidies and implementation
of carbon pricing. To attract more private
investment, policy risk and costs of doing
business must be reduced. Improvement
of policy frameworks and financing
mechanisms for public-private partnerships
(PPPs) needs particular attention,
as this will be an increasingly important
investment modality.

Strengthening public investment management.
Public investment has in general
been on a declining trend, exacerbating
infrastructure gaps. This trend must be reversed.
Also, public investment in research
and development (R&D) in sustainable infrastructure
should be boosted. Public investment
management capacities will need substantial enhancement. Strengthening
project pipelines is a priority, including
incorporating sustainability criteria in
project preparation, public procurement,
and PPPs.

Mobilizing financing. Governments must
expand their own fiscal space, through
tax and expenditure reform and better use
of balance sheets, as well as find innovative
ways to leverage more private finance
and lower its cost. Carbon pricing and
improved property taxation in particular
have the potential to raise substantial revenue
as well as improve the tax structure.
With the large role of urban areas in sustainable
infrastructure, subnational fiscal
reform should empower cities. Through
risk mitigation and other instruments,
development capital (both traditional development
assistance and new climate finance)
should be used in ways to achieve
more leverage. Multilateral development
banks (MDBs) have a key role in this regard
and their capacities will need to be
boosted. Promoting infrastructure as an
asset class will help unlock financing from
the large pools of savings held by institutional
investors. Middle-income countries
in particular should step up efforts to develop
domestic capital markets.

Downloads

Authors

The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris
agreement on climate action present a unique opportunity to set the world
on a path towards better and more sustainable development outcomes. Delivering
sustainable infrastructure at scale lies at the heart of this agenda.
Infrastructure is a major driver of growth and inclusive development. Delivered
in more sustainable ways, it is also key to tackling climate change,
as it currently accounts for around 60 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions. This means investing more, and better, in renewable energy,
cleaner transport, efficient and resilient water systems, and smarter cities.

The world will need to invest upwards of $6 trillion annually in sustainable
infrastructure in the next 15 years, more than double the current level. As
much as three-quarters of the incremental investment will need to take place
in emerging and developing economies, with the largest part in middle-income
countries. This presents a great challenge in mobilizing resources and
better integrating climate sustainability in infrastructure. Strong and concerted
actions will be needed across public and private sectors, and at national
and international levels, including important transformations in the way
infrastructure investment is developed, financed, and implemented. More
than half of the financing will need to be mobilized from the private sector.

Public policy has a central role to play in meeting this challenge, both because
the public sector itself is a major investor in infrastructure and because
public policy provides signals and sets the regulatory and institutional
framework that influence the actions of private investors and consumers.
Soundness, clarity, and credibility of public policy are especially important
for infrastructure investments, given their longevity, public good characteristics,
associated externalities, and inevitable and intimate links to government
policies. There are four key roles for public policy:

Articulating national strategies for sustainable infrastructure. Sustainability
must be fully integrated in national strategies and plans;
addressing one group of projects at a time will not do. The G-20 can provide leadership in setting out clear and
coherent national strategies for sustainable
infrastructure, linked to intended
nationally determined contributions (INDCs)
announced ahead of the Paris meeting.
National infrastructure strategies
should in turn be embedded in overall
national investment and growth strategies
and macroeconomic frameworks.

Improving the policy environment. In getting
prices right to shift incentive structures
towards low-carbon infrastructure,
the highest priority attaches to removal of
fossil-fuel subsidies and implementation
of carbon pricing. To attract more private
investment, policy risk and costs of doing
business must be reduced. Improvement
of policy frameworks and financing
mechanisms for public-private partnerships
(PPPs) needs particular attention,
as this will be an increasingly important
investment modality.

Strengthening public investment management.
Public investment has in general
been on a declining trend, exacerbating
infrastructure gaps. This trend must be reversed.
Also, public investment in research
and development (R&D) in sustainable infrastructure
should be boosted. Public investment
management capacities will need substantial enhancement. Strengthening
project pipelines is a priority, including
incorporating sustainability criteria in
project preparation, public procurement,
and PPPs.

Mobilizing financing. Governments must
expand their own fiscal space, through
tax and expenditure reform and better use
of balance sheets, as well as find innovative
ways to leverage more private finance
and lower its cost. Carbon pricing and
improved property taxation in particular
have the potential to raise substantial revenue
as well as improve the tax structure.
With the large role of urban areas in sustainable
infrastructure, subnational fiscal
reform should empower cities. Through
risk mitigation and other instruments,
development capital (both traditional development
assistance and new climate finance)
should be used in ways to achieve
more leverage. Multilateral development
banks (MDBs) have a key role in this regard
and their capacities will need to be
boosted. Promoting infrastructure as an
asset class will help unlock financing from
the large pools of savings held by institutional
investors. Middle-income countries
in particular should step up efforts to develop
domestic capital markets.

Downloads

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/events/2016/06/07-paris-climate-agreement?rssid=environment{B73BEF1F-A788-434A-9FE2-EAE43DE44112}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/157338170/0/brookingsrss/topics/environment~What-it-will-take-to-deliver-on-the-Paris-climate-agreementWhat it will take to deliver on the Paris climate agreement

Event Information

The Paris climate agreement, recently signed onto by 196 countries, is a milestone in recognizing the threat posed by climate change and securing collective commitment to hold global temperature rise to “well below 2 degrees Celsius.” The task now is to translate this ambitious commitment into a concrete implementation agenda.

On June 7, the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings hosted a high-level panel which included eminent climate expert Lord Nicholas Stern*; World Bank Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati*; University of Maryland Dean of Public Policy and longtime climate advisor Robert Orr; as well as Vice President Kemal Dervis and Senior Fellow Amar Bhattacharya of the Global Economy and Development program. The panel assessed the challenges as well as the opportunities in implementing the Paris climate agreement.

Event Information

The Paris climate agreement, recently signed onto by 196 countries, is a milestone in recognizing the threat posed by climate change and securing collective commitment to hold global temperature rise to “well below 2 degrees Celsius.” The task now is to translate this ambitious commitment into a concrete implementation agenda.

On June 7, the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings hosted a high-level panel which included eminent climate expert Lord Nicholas Stern*; World Bank Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati*; University of Maryland Dean of Public Policy and longtime climate advisor Robert Orr; as well as Vice President Kemal Dervis and Senior Fellow Amar Bhattacharya of the Global Economy and Development program. The panel assessed the challenges as well as the opportunities in implementing the Paris climate agreement.

Among the United Nations’ top diplomats, Christiana Figueres may not be one of the tallest, but she is about to leave a very large pair of shoes to fill as executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In her six years in charge, Figueres has taken the role to new levels, given her insatiable enthusiasm and energy for making the case for climate action and willingness to speak out publicly about the need for greater commitment.

Her successor, Patricia Espinosa—whose appointment became formal Wednesday—is former Mexican secretary of foreign affairs and currently her country’s ambassador to Germany. With that experience, Espinosa is well prepared to take up the job.

Reuters/Henry Romero - Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Christiana Figueres (L) speaks next to Mexico's Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa during a news conference at the Moon Palace, where climate talks are taking place, in Cancun December 6, 2010

Espinosa’s experience as a former minister and president of the 2010 Cancun negotiations distinguishes her as a strong player to help manage the often slow and acrimonious UN climate talks. By taking the post she is embracing a daunting travel and public relations schedule to make the case for the necessary rapid shift by humanity toward a low-emission and resilient global economy.

Fluent in four languages, Espinosa led Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Affairs from 2006-2012, and also served as Mexico's representative at the UN in New York for drug traffic, human rights, social development, women promotion, and children's rights.

Earlier this month, Ambassador Espinosa was nominated by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to become the new executive secretary of the UNFCCC for a term of three years. The position has been upgraded to the level of under-secretary general. The confirmation of her appointment was confirmed by the UNFCCC Bureau yesterday and she is now expected to start this July.

Countries traditionally drive the UNFCCC process. The executive secretary’s role is therefore seen as a neutral facilitator. Behind the scenes, the UNFCCC secretariat also plays an invaluable role managing the negotiations in conjunction with the president of the Conference of the Parties (COP), the co-chairs of the various negotiation track and countries.

Espinosa’s experience as a former minister and president of the 2010 Cancun negotiations distinguishes her as a strong player to help manage the often slow and acrimonious UN climate talks.

Espinosa’s nomination has been widely applauded. As president of the 2010 negotiations held in Cancun, she successfully steered the UN climate talks toward a positive outcome following the derailing of the talks in Copenhagen in 2009.

Her leadership was remarkable for adeptly managing the complex and delicate negotiations. Espinosa’s approach epitomized the importance of building trust among all countries and emphasizing an open and transparent process. Nearly all countries praised Mexico’s diplomatic team for consistently providing space for dialogue.

In the final moments of COP16, Espinosa courted controversy when she gaveled through the Cancun Agreements despite Bolivia’s objections. She famously said that “Consensus does not mean that one country has the right of veto ...” As she brought the gavel down the plenary erupted in applause.

As a member of the OECD (a club of the rich countries), Mexico is not part of the G77 + China group of developing countries. Yet in many areas of the negotiations Mexico identifies and aligns with other developing countries. So in this way, Espinosa’s nomination charts a new middle-ground of countries somewhere in the nether world between the global North and South.

What’s next?

Last month, 177 countries signed the Paris Agreement at a UN event in New York. The agreement could enter into force this year or next. Ambassador Espinosa will therefore take over the UNFCCC as the global response enters a critical new phrase of attempting to implement the Paris Agreement. A drumbeat of scientific findings and climate-related disasters suggest the urgency for massive and coordinated global action.

As a former minister and a top diplomat, Espinosa knows the realities of messy compromises and political expediency. The UNFCCC top job may have just gotten harder, but its new boss appears tough enough to meet the challenge.

Espinosa’s arrival coincides with a tough period for global climate change governance. Securing the Paris Agreement was a major achievement, but now we need to sustain and accelerate this fragile progress. Espinosa’s biggest task will be encouraging the ratification of the Paris Agreement and its early entry into force, and ironing out remaining details in the accompanying decision documents to implement the agreement.

Following up from Paris, negotiators are in Bonn, Germany this week and the next UNFCCC chief has a number of top priorities and challenges. Among them are bringing international goals from Paris and to encourage countries to meet their Paris pledges and even scale up their ambition.

Although the position is neutral and not related to her national government, Mexico will likely come under greater scrutiny. Mexico aims to ratify the agreement this year, which would be a great signal and boost for Espinosa’s effort to bring along other nations.

Mexican NGOs, emboldened to have one of their own as UNFCCC chief, will try to leverage greater commitment at home. Mexico’s national climate plan is currently considered out of sync with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement that NGOs will focus on. Ambassador Espinosa’s appointment may be able to indirectly galvanize greater interest in the low-carbon transition in Mexico, a country that remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

The role of non-state actors in implementing the Paris Agreement—especially indigenous peoples, NGOs, cities, and the private sector—will be essential. Non-state actors will pay close attention to whether Espinosa will commit to continue making the UN climate negotiations more inclusive and participatory.

Reuters/Mike Segar - Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, delivers his opening remarks at the Paris Agreement signing ceremony on climate change at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, New York, U.S., April 22, 2016

Espinosa will be tasked with ensuring the agreement operates smoothly and increases ambition as the years progress, and ensuring pledges by wealthy nations to help fund mitigation and adaptation actions in developing countries are met. She will need to help build the critical review system on whether countries are meeting these pledges. And she will be dealing with some tough customers—countries with lingering concerns about the whole Paris approach and national industries and companies that push back against a low-carbon transition.

Latin Americans are thrilled to have another of their own in the driver’s seat. Christiana Figueres has undoubtedly set a very high bar. But the reality for the Paris Agreement is now different, with the shift toward ratification and implementation. As a former minister and a top diplomat, Espinosa knows the realities of messy compromises and political expediency. The UNFCCC top job may have just gotten harder, but its new boss appears tough enough to meet the challenge.

Authors

Among the United Nations’ top diplomats, Christiana Figueres may not be one of the tallest, but she is about to leave a very large pair of shoes to fill as executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In her six years in charge, Figueres has taken the role to new levels, given her insatiable enthusiasm and energy for making the case for climate action and willingness to speak out publicly about the need for greater commitment.

Her successor, Patricia Espinosa—whose appointment became formal Wednesday—is former Mexican secretary of foreign affairs and currently her country’s ambassador to Germany. With that experience, Espinosa is well prepared to take up the job.

Reuters/Henry Romero - Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Christiana Figueres (L) speaks next to Mexico's Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa during a news conference at the Moon Palace, where climate talks are taking place, in Cancun December 6, 2010

Espinosa’s experience as a former minister and president of the 2010 Cancun negotiations distinguishes her as a strong player to help manage the often slow and acrimonious UN climate talks. By taking the post she is embracing a daunting travel and public relations schedule to make the case for the necessary rapid shift by humanity toward a low-emission and resilient global economy.

Fluent in four languages, Espinosa led Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Affairs from 2006-2012, and also served as Mexico's representative at the UN in New York for drug traffic, human rights, social development, women promotion, and children's rights.

Earlier this month, Ambassador Espinosa was nominated by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to become the new executive secretary of the UNFCCC for a term of three years. The position has been upgraded to the level of under-secretary general. The confirmation of her appointment was confirmed by the UNFCCC Bureau yesterday and she is now expected to start this July.

Countries traditionally drive the UNFCCC process. The executive secretary’s role is therefore seen as a neutral facilitator. Behind the scenes, the UNFCCC secretariat also plays an invaluable role managing the negotiations in conjunction with the president of the Conference of the Parties (COP), the co-chairs of the various negotiation track and countries.

Espinosa’s experience as a former minister and president of the 2010 Cancun negotiations distinguishes her as a strong player to help manage the often slow and acrimonious UN climate talks.

Espinosa’s nomination has been widely applauded. As president of the 2010 negotiations held in Cancun, she successfully steered the UN climate talks toward a positive outcome following the derailing of the talks in Copenhagen in 2009.

Her leadership was remarkable for adeptly managing the complex and delicate negotiations. Espinosa’s approach epitomized the importance of building trust among all countries and emphasizing an open and transparent process. Nearly all countries praised Mexico’s diplomatic team for consistently providing space for dialogue.

In the final moments of COP16, Espinosa courted controversy when she gaveled through the Cancun Agreements despite Bolivia’s objections. She famously said that “Consensus does not mean that one country has the right of veto ...” As she brought the gavel down the plenary erupted in applause.

As a member of the OECD (a club of the rich countries), Mexico is not part of the G77 + China group of developing countries. Yet in many areas of the negotiations Mexico identifies and aligns with other developing countries. So in this way, Espinosa’s nomination charts a new middle-ground of countries somewhere in the nether world between the global North and South.

What’s next?

Last month, 177 countries signed the Paris Agreement at a UN event in New York. The agreement could enter into force this year or next. Ambassador Espinosa will therefore take over the UNFCCC as the global response enters a critical new phrase of attempting to implement the Paris Agreement. A drumbeat of scientific findings and climate-related disasters suggest the urgency for massive and coordinated global action.

As a former minister and a top diplomat, Espinosa knows the realities of messy compromises and political expediency. The UNFCCC top job may have just gotten harder, but its new boss appears tough enough to meet the challenge.

Espinosa’s arrival coincides with a tough period for global climate change governance. Securing the Paris Agreement was a major achievement, but now we need to sustain and accelerate this fragile progress. Espinosa’s biggest task will be encouraging the ratification of the Paris Agreement and its early entry into force, and ironing out remaining details in the accompanying decision documents to implement the agreement.

Following up from Paris, negotiators are in Bonn, Germany this week and the next UNFCCC chief has a number of top priorities and challenges. Among them are bringing international goals from Paris and to encourage countries to meet their Paris pledges and even scale up their ambition.

Although the position is neutral and not related to her national government, Mexico will likely come under greater scrutiny. Mexico aims to ratify the agreement this year, which would be a great signal and boost for Espinosa’s effort to bring along other nations.

Mexican NGOs, emboldened to have one of their own as UNFCCC chief, will try to leverage greater commitment at home. Mexico’s national climate plan is currently considered out of sync with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement that NGOs will focus on. Ambassador Espinosa’s appointment may be able to indirectly galvanize greater interest in the low-carbon transition in Mexico, a country that remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

The role of non-state actors in implementing the Paris Agreement—especially indigenous peoples, NGOs, cities, and the private sector—will be essential. Non-state actors will pay close attention to whether Espinosa will commit to continue making the UN climate negotiations more inclusive and participatory.

Reuters/Mike Segar - Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, delivers his opening remarks at the Paris Agreement signing ceremony on climate change at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, New York, U.S., April 22, 2016

Espinosa will be tasked with ensuring the agreement operates smoothly and increases ambition as the years progress, and ensuring pledges by wealthy nations to help fund mitigation and adaptation actions in developing countries are met. She will need to help build the critical review system on whether countries are meeting these pledges. And she will be dealing with some tough customers—countries with lingering concerns about the whole Paris approach and national industries and companies that push back against a low-carbon transition.

Latin Americans are thrilled to have another of their own in the driver’s seat. Christiana Figueres has undoubtedly set a very high bar. But the reality for the Paris Agreement is now different, with the shift toward ratification and implementation. As a former minister and a top diplomat, Espinosa knows the realities of messy compromises and political expediency. The UNFCCC top job may have just gotten harder, but its new boss appears tough enough to meet the challenge.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2016/04/21-earth-day-climate-change-roberts?rssid=environment{6CE1EBD4-01BB-4E2A-9CE3-E14FE85257FB}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/150503802/0/brookingsrss/topics/environment~On-Earth-Day-bring-together-the-dreamers-and-the-plodders-on-climate-changeOn Earth Day, bring together the dreamers and the plodders on climate change

A schism is opening between two groups calling for action on climate change: the dreamers and the plodders. The dreamers are panicked by the mountains of scientific evidence on climate change and call for a massive transformation of our energy system to keep the planet safe. The plodders advocate more realistic steps in the face of political gridlock. Of course both arguments have their merits, but until these two groups reach a consensus on how to move forward, real solutions will remain on the horizon, just out of reach.

Reuters/Stephane Mahe

The cautious Obama administration

Last Thursday’s New York Democratic debate demonstrated this tension. Senator Bernie Sanders called for a World War II-like mobilization to counter the threat of global warming. Meanwhile, Secretary Hillary Clinton stood steadfast behind the incrementalism approach of the Obama administration, working around an obstructionist Congress.

The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan turns the policy dials as far as possible with existing regulatory tools. It does so with improved efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, nudges the shift from coal to natural gas, and pushes for a modest uptake of renewables. The U.S.’s national climate plan submitted with great fanfare as part of the Paris Agreement aims to reduce emissions by 26-28 percent by 2025. Yet there will be a reckoning between the pledge and what’s actually required to stay within a budget that would give us a fighting chance to avoid dangerous climate change.

The dreamers know what’s needed but lack a credible and concrete technical, political, and sociological plan to get us there. The plodders have a set of existing and politically acceptable tools that are inadequate to the task.

What we need

What we need is a bold new climate and energy policy in the U.S. And we need a whole new set of social and technical knowledge to get us there. We need transformational thinking and new policy tools. And, we need major legislation such as putting a price on carbon. However, we also need to know if those steps will even be enough to keep us below the scientifically endorsed and aspirational goal included in the Paris Agreement of limiting global average temperature increases to 2.0 or 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The dreamers know what’s needed but lack a credible and concrete technical, political, and sociological plan to get us there. The plodders have a set of existing and politically acceptable tools that are inadequate to the task.

Since 2012, The Solutions Project has sought to lay out how the U.S. and the world could boost energy efficiency and switch to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. This, however, is focused on the technical side of such a transition. Missing is the political and social thinking adequate to consider where power and resistance lie and how to bring about a just and rapid transition with the technology we have.

We need to start by clearly understanding how much energy savings and carbon emissions reductions existing programs can deliver in various situations. What will each deliver under different political and economic scenarios? Whose livelihoods might be threatened and how can planners address their needs?

The Rhode Island example

I call Rhode Island home, and here, we have good existing programs to build upon. These are instructive of the task faced by many other U.S. states and the nation as a whole. Since 2004, Rhode Island has had the Renewable Energy Standard, which requires a steadily increasing proportion of energy to be supplied by renewable sources each year. . We can extend and strengthen that. Since 2006 the state has mandated that energy companies do the “least cost procurement” of the energy they need, forcing utilities to first undertake serious efficiency and “load-shedding” measures before they build new power lines and power plants. That’s saved millions of dollars and many megawatts of electricity, and reduced our state’s dependence on imported fuels. Since 2011, we have had a growing Distributed Generation program in which wind, solar photovoltaic, and anaerobic digestion technologies compete to lock in prices so they can in turn sell electricity back to the grid. The benefits have begun: clean energy jobs here shot up 40 percent in 2015, and renewables jobs rose by 84 percent in just one year.

Rhode Island can scale up efforts at increasing efficiency, and lock in the savings by replacing the remaining energy needs with renewables (see thesolutionsproject.org for one model on how we might). We are developing the first offshore wind farm in North America, which could be scaled up sharply with increased investment. We can incentivize local solar installation, and could become leaders in wave and tidal energy research and implementation. For backup we can buy more hydroelectric power from Quebec and Labrador. We have legislation pending to reduce demand by putting a fair and steadily rising price on carbon which will fund weatherization of low-income homes and small businesses.

What we need is a bold new climate and energy policy in the U.S. And we need a whole new set of social and technical knowledge and know-how to get us there. We need transformational thinking and new policy tools.

Rhode Island can use energy “demand pricing” to incentivize customers to use energy at times of day when it is cheapest and most plentiful, simply by timing when they charge their cars or run their dishwashers. In the short term, we need to aggressively address natural gas (methane) leaks, shore up distribution networks (pipes), and mitigate environmental fallout from extraction (fracking). We can utilize existing nuclear facilities to ease the transition, as long as they remain safe.

Providence Journal

We can technically get closer to zero net emissions, and possibly quickly enough to avoid profound climate impacts. But we don’t really know how quickly each of these efforts will deliver what levels of emissions reductions, and whether they can together spur a just and rapid transition off of fossil fuels.

This Earth Day, it’s clear that we need a bold climate and energy policy in the U.S., and we need a whole new set of social and natural science to get us there, combining the vision and urgency of the dreamers with the practical approach of the plodders.

Authors

A schism is opening between two groups calling for action on climate change: the dreamers and the plodders. The dreamers are panicked by the mountains of scientific evidence on climate change and call for a massive transformation of our energy system to keep the planet safe. The plodders advocate more realistic steps in the face of political gridlock. Of course both arguments have their merits, but until these two groups reach a consensus on how to move forward, real solutions will remain on the horizon, just out of reach.

Reuters/Stephane Mahe

The cautious Obama administration

Last Thursday’s New York Democratic debate demonstrated this tension. Senator Bernie Sanders called for a World War II-like mobilization to counter the threat of global warming. Meanwhile, Secretary Hillary Clinton stood steadfast behind the incrementalism approach of the Obama administration, working around an obstructionist Congress.

The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan turns the policy dials as far as possible with existing regulatory tools. It does so with improved efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, nudges the shift from coal to natural gas, and pushes for a modest uptake of renewables. The U.S.’s national climate plan submitted with great fanfare as part of the Paris Agreement aims to reduce emissions by 26-28 percent by 2025. Yet there will be a reckoning between the pledge and what’s actually required to stay within a budget that would give us a fighting chance to avoid dangerous climate change.

The dreamers know what’s needed but lack a credible and concrete technical, political, and sociological plan to get us there. The plodders have a set of existing and politically acceptable tools that are inadequate to the task.

What we need

What we need is a bold new climate and energy policy in the U.S. And we need a whole new set of social and technical knowledge to get us there. We need transformational thinking and new policy tools. And, we need major legislation such as putting a price on carbon. However, we also need to know if those steps will even be enough to keep us below the scientifically endorsed and aspirational goal included in the Paris Agreement of limiting global average temperature increases to 2.0 or 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The dreamers know what’s needed but lack a credible and concrete technical, political, and sociological plan to get us there. The plodders have a set of existing and politically acceptable tools that are inadequate to the task.

Since 2012, The Solutions Project has sought to lay out how the U.S. and the world could boost energy efficiency and switch to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. This, however, is focused on the technical side of such a transition. Missing is the political and social thinking adequate to consider where power and resistance lie and how to bring about a just and rapid transition with the technology we have.

We need to start by clearly understanding how much energy savings and carbon emissions reductions existing programs can deliver in various situations. What will each deliver under different political and economic scenarios? Whose livelihoods might be threatened and how can planners address their needs?

The Rhode Island example

I call Rhode Island home, and here, we have good existing programs to build upon. These are instructive of the task faced by many other U.S. states and the nation as a whole. Since 2004, Rhode Island has had the Renewable Energy Standard, which requires a steadily increasing proportion of energy to be supplied by renewable sources each year. . We can extend and strengthen that. Since 2006 the state has mandated that energy companies do the “least cost procurement” of the energy they need, forcing utilities to first undertake serious efficiency and “load-shedding” measures before they build new power lines and power plants. That’s saved millions of dollars and many megawatts of electricity, and reduced our state’s dependence on imported fuels. Since 2011, we have had a growing Distributed Generation program in which wind, solar photovoltaic, and anaerobic digestion technologies compete to lock in prices so they can in turn sell electricity back to the grid. The benefits have begun: clean energy jobs here shot up 40 percent in 2015, and renewables jobs rose by 84 percent in just one year.

Rhode Island can scale up efforts at increasing efficiency, and lock in the savings by replacing the remaining energy needs with renewables (see thesolutionsproject.org for one model on how we might). We are developing the first offshore wind farm in North America, which could be scaled up sharply with increased investment. We can incentivize local solar installation, and could become leaders in wave and tidal energy research and implementation. For backup we can buy more hydroelectric power from Quebec and Labrador. We have legislation pending to reduce demand by putting a fair and steadily rising price on carbon which will fund weatherization of low-income homes and small businesses.

What we need is a bold new climate and energy policy in the U.S. And we need a whole new set of social and technical knowledge and know-how to get us there. We need transformational thinking and new policy tools.

Rhode Island can use energy “demand pricing” to incentivize customers to use energy at times of day when it is cheapest and most plentiful, simply by timing when they charge their cars or run their dishwashers. In the short term, we need to aggressively address natural gas (methane) leaks, shore up distribution networks (pipes), and mitigate environmental fallout from extraction (fracking). We can utilize existing nuclear facilities to ease the transition, as long as they remain safe.

Providence Journal

We can technically get closer to zero net emissions, and possibly quickly enough to avoid profound climate impacts. But we don’t really know how quickly each of these efforts will deliver what levels of emissions reductions, and whether they can together spur a just and rapid transition off of fossil fuels.

This Earth Day, it’s clear that we need a bold climate and energy policy in the U.S., and we need a whole new set of social and natural science to get us there, combining the vision and urgency of the dreamers with the practical approach of the plodders.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2016/04/20-bp-oil-spill-lessons-learned-ebinger?rssid=environment{D64FB641-CD68-4F48-8577-56559D4BAF50}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/150379692/0/brookingsrss/topics/environment~years-from-the-BP-Deepwater-Horizon-oil-spill-What-weve-learned-and-what-we-shouldnt-misunderstand6 years from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill: What we've learned, and what we shouldn't misunderstand

Six years ago today, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico with devastating effects on the local environment and on public perception of offshore oil and gas drilling. The blowout sent toxic fluids and gas shooting up the well, leading to an explosion on board the rig that killed 11 people and injured an additional 115 crew members, some seriously. Two days later, ironically on Earth Day 2010, the rig sank, breaking off the pipe connection to the well and jettisoning 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for a period of nearly three months until it could be contained. Very quickly the disaster became the worst oil spill in the history of the United States, far exceeding the Exxon Valdez tanker spill of 11 million gallons in 1989, and the second largest oil spill in the world, falling behind only the Ixtoc well offshore Mexico in 1979.

Impacts of the Macondo oil spill

The “Macondo oil spill,” as it came to be called, had a devastating impact on the environment. Oil was scattered over more than 1,300 miles of shoreline from Texas to Florida. Owing to deep water ocean currents, the oil flowed hundreds of miles away from the blowout. A large volume of oil sank to the ocean floor. In the attempt to clean up the spill, incalculable damage was done to fish and wildlife and to vital marshes and estuaries. In addition, though they were seldom discussed at the time, cleanup efforts often made first responders ill from the chemicals and other substances used in attempts to contain and clean up the damage.

As bad as the Macondo oil spill was in its direct impacts on the environment, its lasting effect has been even more pronounced on the energy and environmental policy. The fact that it took BP nearly three months to cap the well—despite the fact that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred near the heart of the oil and gas service industry along the Gulf coast—raised serious concern about what would happen if a blowout occurred in an even more remote region, such as Alaska’s northwest shelf where no help would be readily attainable and where oil could seep under ice, making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to recover. Consequently, whereas previously the Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal oversight authorities had one standard for all offshore operations, after Macondo there was a growing chorus for “Alaska-specific” regulations, which in the end, combined with the disappointing results of Shell’s first well and the collapse in oil prices, led to a reassessment about whether drilling in ice covered regions of the Arctic poses too great of a financial and technical risk.

Meeting future global oil demand

Even though oil and gas drilling continues in ice free regions of the Barents and in Russia, a decision to curtail drilling in North America’s Arctic over the long term poses a grave security risk to the nation and to the world. While long-term forecasts can of course be proven wrong, it is interesting to note that even with the fall in oil prices, projections for oil supplies by international oil companies, the International Energy Agency, the U.S. government, and OPEC continue to project that by 2030 to 2040 world oil demand will rise from roughly 93 to 94 million barrels per day (mmbd) in 2016 to 106 to114 mmbd. The question then becomes where will this oil come from?

Prior to the collapse in oil prices, the answer to the above question was:

Soaring North American production of shale oil and Canadian oil sands;

Deep offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa;

The pre-salt offshore Brazil;

The Arctic; and

The Persian Gulf, with both Iraq and Iran possibly to become major oil producers.

Today, with the collapse of oil prices, in almost every one of these regions outside the Middle East, production has been placed on the back burner. Even in the Persian Gulf, given the political volatility, it seems unlikely that Iraq and Iran will reach the levels of production justified by their oil reserves.

Adding to the above uncertainty is the fact that with the collapse in oil prices, capital budgets for new exploration and production have been slashed. As the world would need to find nearly 3 mmbd of new production just to replace the oil consumed each year, these falling expenditures after two to three years will come back to haunt us as global demand continues to climb by 1 mmbd per annum, leading to the world market coming back into balance by late 2017 to 2018.

Of course there is always the possibility that the roughly 2.5 mmbd of oil currently shut in around the world owing to political conflicts in Libya, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, Kuwait, and Venezuela could come back on line, leading to low prices remaining a bit longer.

Lessons learned and misconceptions

As we note the 6th anniversary of the Macondo tragedy, let us not take away the wrong lesson by misinterpreting the past. It was not offshore drilling per se that led to the accident, but rather the fact that too cozy a relationship between regulators from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) and owners and operators of the Deepwater Horizon rig led to woefully inadequate regulatory oversight. There was also poor coordination and inadequate lines of responsibility among BP, Transocean, and Haliburton employees. Additionally, there was no contingency planning by the companies or the U.S. Coast Guard on what to do in the event of an emergency—a grave shortcoming when you are drilling at depths with little past experience. Finally, from the evidence presented in court and in regulatory proceedings, it is clear that there was gross negligence on the part of BP and its partners who placed short-term profits against technically sound drilling practices, with untold damage in the public trust of the entire petroleum industry, an industry on which the world’s future lies.

Workers clean up oil balls from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as the surf brings more onto a beach in Waveland, Mississippi July 7, 2010. Reuters/Lee Celano

Though this particular incident certainly represents the dangers of offshore drilling without requisite oversight, it has also placed an unjust stigma on many leaders in the industry who have exemplified sound environmental consciousness in their drilling practices. As global leaders work to expand energy access to the millions of people worldwide who still lack basic electricity, the oil and gas industry should and must be an important partner.

The way forward after Macondo

Moving forward, development of offshore drilling should continue prudently—from the Arctic to the Gulf. Many policies and best practices can ensure safety standards are met, including:

Spill response drills and contingency planning for the U.S. Coast Guard; and

Utilizing the best available technology and continuing job training for rig operators.

As noted, demand for oil will outpace current available resources, and outlawing offshore drilling—a policy advocated by several presidential candidates—would be hugely detrimental not only to enabling access to important resources for energy development but also for the many Americans whose jobs and livelihoods are directly tied to the industry. Finally, the major lesson of Macondo for the future of Arctic offshore drilling once prices justify renewed interest in the region is that the U.S. government should use this period to develop the requisite infrastructure (ports, harbors, the prepositioning of vital equipment such as capping stacks, etc.) and detailed contingency planning before any new permits should be given. There are avenues policymakers and private sector entities can take to ensure a Macondo never happens again, but only by committing to regulation today.

Authors

Six years ago today, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico with devastating effects on the local environment and on public perception of offshore oil and gas drilling. The blowout sent toxic fluids and gas shooting up the well, leading to an explosion on board the rig that killed 11 people and injured an additional 115 crew members, some seriously. Two days later, ironically on Earth Day 2010, the rig sank, breaking off the pipe connection to the well and jettisoning 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for a period of nearly three months until it could be contained. Very quickly the disaster became the worst oil spill in the history of the United States, far exceeding the Exxon Valdez tanker spill of 11 million gallons in 1989, and the second largest oil spill in the world, falling behind only the Ixtoc well offshore Mexico in 1979.

Impacts of the Macondo oil spill

The “Macondo oil spill,” as it came to be called, had a devastating impact on the environment. Oil was scattered over more than 1,300 miles of shoreline from Texas to Florida. Owing to deep water ocean currents, the oil flowed hundreds of miles away from the blowout. A large volume of oil sank to the ocean floor. In the attempt to clean up the spill, incalculable damage was done to fish and wildlife and to vital marshes and estuaries. In addition, though they were seldom discussed at the time, cleanup efforts often made first responders ill from the chemicals and other substances used in attempts to contain and clean up the damage.

As bad as the Macondo oil spill was in its direct impacts on the environment, its lasting effect has been even more pronounced on the energy and environmental policy. The fact that it took BP nearly three months to cap the well—despite the fact that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred near the heart of the oil and gas service industry along the Gulf coast—raised serious concern about what would happen if a blowout occurred in an even more remote region, such as Alaska’s northwest shelf where no help would be readily attainable and where oil could seep under ice, making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to recover. Consequently, whereas previously the Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal oversight authorities had one standard for all offshore operations, after Macondo there was a growing chorus for “Alaska-specific” regulations, which in the end, combined with the disappointing results of Shell’s first well and the collapse in oil prices, led to a reassessment about whether drilling in ice covered regions of the Arctic poses too great of a financial and technical risk.

Meeting future global oil demand

Even though oil and gas drilling continues in ice free regions of the Barents and in Russia, a decision to curtail drilling in North America’s Arctic over the long term poses a grave security risk to the nation and to the world. While long-term forecasts can of course be proven wrong, it is interesting to note that even with the fall in oil prices, projections for oil supplies by international oil companies, the International Energy Agency, the U.S. government, and OPEC continue to project that by 2030 to 2040 world oil demand will rise from roughly 93 to 94 million barrels per day (mmbd) in 2016 to 106 to114 mmbd. The question then becomes where will this oil come from?

Prior to the collapse in oil prices, the answer to the above question was:

Soaring North American production of shale oil and Canadian oil sands;

Deep offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa;

The pre-salt offshore Brazil;

The Arctic; and

The Persian Gulf, with both Iraq and Iran possibly to become major oil producers.

Today, with the collapse of oil prices, in almost every one of these regions outside the Middle East, production has been placed on the back burner. Even in the Persian Gulf, given the political volatility, it seems unlikely that Iraq and Iran will reach the levels of production justified by their oil reserves.

Adding to the above uncertainty is the fact that with the collapse in oil prices, capital budgets for new exploration and production have been slashed. As the world would need to find nearly 3 mmbd of new production just to replace the oil consumed each year, these falling expenditures after two to three years will come back to haunt us as global demand continues to climb by 1 mmbd per annum, leading to the world market coming back into balance by late 2017 to 2018.

Of course there is always the possibility that the roughly 2.5 mmbd of oil currently shut in around the world owing to political conflicts in Libya, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, Kuwait, and Venezuela could come back on line, leading to low prices remaining a bit longer.

Lessons learned and misconceptions

As we note the 6th anniversary of the Macondo tragedy, let us not take away the wrong lesson by misinterpreting the past. It was not offshore drilling per se that led to the accident, but rather the fact that too cozy a relationship between regulators from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) and owners and operators of the Deepwater Horizon rig led to woefully inadequate regulatory oversight. There was also poor coordination and inadequate lines of responsibility among BP, Transocean, and Haliburton employees. Additionally, there was no contingency planning by the companies or the U.S. Coast Guard on what to do in the event of an emergency—a grave shortcoming when you are drilling at depths with little past experience. Finally, from the evidence presented in court and in regulatory proceedings, it is clear that there was gross negligence on the part of BP and its partners who placed short-term profits against technically sound drilling practices, with untold damage in the public trust of the entire petroleum industry, an industry on which the world’s future lies.

Workers clean up oil balls from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as the surf brings more onto a beach in Waveland, Mississippi July 7, 2010. Reuters/Lee Celano

Though this particular incident certainly represents the dangers of offshore drilling without requisite oversight, it has also placed an unjust stigma on many leaders in the industry who have exemplified sound environmental consciousness in their drilling practices. As global leaders work to expand energy access to the millions of people worldwide who still lack basic electricity, the oil and gas industry should and must be an important partner.

The way forward after Macondo

Moving forward, development of offshore drilling should continue prudently—from the Arctic to the Gulf. Many policies and best practices can ensure safety standards are met, including:

Spill response drills and contingency planning for the U.S. Coast Guard; and

Utilizing the best available technology and continuing job training for rig operators.

As noted, demand for oil will outpace current available resources, and outlawing offshore drilling—a policy advocated by several presidential candidates—would be hugely detrimental not only to enabling access to important resources for energy development but also for the many Americans whose jobs and livelihoods are directly tied to the industry. Finally, the major lesson of Macondo for the future of Arctic offshore drilling once prices justify renewed interest in the region is that the U.S. government should use this period to develop the requisite infrastructure (ports, harbors, the prepositioning of vital equipment such as capping stacks, etc.) and detailed contingency planning before any new permits should be given. There are avenues policymakers and private sector entities can take to ensure a Macondo never happens again, but only by committing to regulation today.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/events/2016/03/30-green-un-sustainable-development-goals?rssid=environment{5EC8FD96-6236-4795-9FB0-984E2BBCED37}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/152486692/0/brookingsrss/topics/environment~Green-development-and-UN-sustainable-development-goalsGreen development and U.N. sustainable development goals

Event Information

March 30, 20163:00 PM - 4:30 PM CST

Brookings-Tsinghua Center

Beijing

2015 marked the 40th anniversary of China-European Union (EU) diplomatic ties, highlighting the achievements and continued cooperation in the fields of investment and trade. One of the primary issues in today’s world is green and sustainable development, and the European region has established itself as a central player in the practice of green design. This has become a key factor in coordinating EU relations, and China has been making headway towards the green design movement with energy saving practices, in addition to positive emission reduction commitments made in Paris in 2015.

On March 30, the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy (BTC) hosted a public discussion featuring Jo Leinen, chairman of the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with China, and Qi Ye, director of the BTC. The discussion focused on the topic of the new pattern of the European Union under the green development and sustainable development goals of the United Nations. Leinen has been an elected member of the European Parliament since 1999 and the president of the Union of European Federalists since 1997. Since 2004, he has been a member of the Advisory Council of the Committee for a Democratic U.N. Prior to his time in the European Parliament, he was the minister of the environment in the state of Saarland, Germany and vice president of the European Environment Bureau in Brussels.

Leinen stressed the importance of global governance and international cooperation, which has been emphasized in recent years in order to maintain the stability of the financial system, protect the environment, fight against terrorism, and
promote peace throughout the world. He discussed the progress that the China-EU trade relationship has made in the last year, with total trade reaching 400 billion euros, and expressed hope that China-EU relations can achieve new breakthroughs in the future. On the environmental side, Leinen affirmed China’s efforts in the development of a green low-carbon economy and contribution to the world in working to reduce emissions. He highlighted China’s crucial role at the climate change conference in Paris in 2015 and the country’s commitment to allow greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2030, although he believes that may be a conservative estimate.

]]>
Wed, 30 Mar 2016 03:00:00 -0400

Event Information

March 30, 2016
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM CST

Brookings-Tsinghua Center

Beijing

2015 marked the 40th anniversary of China-European Union (EU) diplomatic ties, highlighting the achievements and continued cooperation in the fields of investment and trade. One of the primary issues in today’s world is green and sustainable development, and the European region has established itself as a central player in the practice of green design. This has become a key factor in coordinating EU relations, and China has been making headway towards the green design movement with energy saving practices, in addition to positive emission reduction commitments made in Paris in 2015.

On March 30, the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy (BTC) hosted a public discussion featuring Jo Leinen, chairman of the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with China, and Qi Ye, director of the BTC. The discussion focused on the topic of the new pattern of the European Union under the green development and sustainable development goals of the United Nations. Leinen has been an elected member of the European Parliament since 1999 and the president of the Union of European Federalists since 1997. Since 2004, he has been a member of the Advisory Council of the Committee for a Democratic U.N. Prior to his time in the European Parliament, he was the minister of the environment in the state of Saarland, Germany and vice president of the European Environment Bureau in Brussels.

Leinen stressed the importance of global governance and international cooperation, which has been emphasized in recent years in order to maintain the stability of the financial system, protect the environment, fight against terrorism, and
promote peace throughout the world. He discussed the progress that the China-EU trade relationship has made in the last year, with total trade reaching 400 billion euros, and expressed hope that China-EU relations can achieve new breakthroughs in the future. On the environmental side, Leinen affirmed China’s efforts in the development of a green low-carbon economy and contribution to the world in working to reduce emissions. He highlighted China’s crucial role at the climate change conference in Paris in 2015 and the country’s commitment to allow greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2030, although he believes that may be a conservative estimate.

In the wake of the COP21 international climate negotiations that culminated in the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise, the Obama administration looked to its Clean Power Plan (CPP) as the centerpiece of its emissions reduction approach. But with the recent Supreme Court “motion to stay,” the CPP is at a temporary halt. As the CPP makes its way through the courts, it is important to consider an alternative and achievable policy that can help the U.S. meet its long-term climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.

In fire prone forests like those on the reservation of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, woody debris left after forest thinning or other forestry operations is normally piled and burned to eliminate it as potential hazardous fuel. (NARA Photo)

Is redefining renewable biomass the answer?

One solution that has the potential to substantially curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a change in the Energy Independence and Security Act’s (EISA) definition of “renewable biomass.” Renewable biomass is an energy source that can be used for heat, electricity or to power transportation through its conversion into liquid fuel, known as biofuel. Energy from biomass represents close to half of all renewable energy production. In practical terms, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines biomass as live or dead organic matter. But, for legal purposes, biomass can have much more specific definitions.

Since 2004, either federal law or the tax code has incorporated 14 different biomass definitions. EISA’s definition of renewable biomass determines what raw materials qualify for credits known as Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs). RIN credits serve as a compliance currency for fossil fuel producers to buy or sell to meet their annual renewable fuel obligation. Today, EISA’s definition contains several biomass sources, but the one with the greatest potential for solving multiple environmental challenges is tied to woody debris from forestry operations. Unfortunately, the specific biomass definition that qualifies for RIN credits is woody debris that originates “… from non-federal forestland including forestland belonging to an Indian tribe or an Indian individual …” This limits the more than 251 million acres of national forestland that could provide additional woody debris into the renewable fuel stream. A small tweak to EISA’s language can ascribe RIN credits to renewable fuel derived from woody biomass that originates across all lands. An all-lands approach that expands the amount of biomass that qualifies for RIN credits can offer a pathway to GHG emission reductions, greater innovation in low carbon fuels, and stronger support for U.S. Native American communities.

In 2014, the U.S. House of Representatives considered a change to EISA’s definition of renewable biomass through the American Energy Opportunity Act (AEOA). The AEOA’s proposed change in definition would have expanded renewable biomass to include woody debris from forestry operations on all lands (including federal forestlands). The potential impact of an all-lands definition for renewable biomass would have been substantial. This bill did not pass, so federal lands continue to be excluded as a source of renewable biomass under EISA.

One solution that has the potential to substantially curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a change in the Energy Independence and Security Act’s (EISA) definition of “renewable biomass.”

What are the policy outcomes for a resilient, low-carbon and prosperous future?

Emission reductions: Increasing the economic value of biomass can reduce emissions and wildfires by promoting forest fuel reduction. Today, markets for forest residues are largely undeveloped, so the biomass is waste that is commonly disposed of by burning. The ability to retrieve the monetary value of RINs from biomass removed from federal lands will encourage additional forest thinning to curb catastrophic wildfires, GHG emissions, and improve the environment. The potential for impact is substantial; about 4-6 percent of the continental U.S.’s annual emissions come from forest fires, and healthy forestlands can sequester approximately 12 percent of the national emissions annually. Through the expansion of forest thinning, a larger fraction of our forestlands can become more fire resilient. The receipt of RIN credits from renewable fuel generated from all forest lands could motivate more fuel reduction efforts by offering a new stream of monetary support.

Innovation in low-carbon fuels: The growth in available feedstock that qualifies for RINs can contribute to attainment of national biofuel and renewable energy production goals. Biofuel productionbenefits from economies of scale. Substantially increased supply of biomass will promote further investment to encourage the development of more renewable energy. Under EISA’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), cellulosic biofuel producers have chronically fallen short of the mandates; this year 230 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel is ordered to be blended with transportation fuel.

The proposal to redefine biomass to include federal lands can only help cellulosic biofuel producers meet their RFS mandates. Investment and growth of the cellulosic biofuel industry has been slow to develop for several reasons, including biomass supply risks. Access to one of the nation’s largest potential sources of forest biomass — federal lands — will lower the cost of RIN-eligible renewable fuel. Biomass generated from an incentivized-expansion of forest thinning activities on federal land would reduce supply risk and fire risk. The 2.2 million tons of woody biomass made available through collaborative efforts by the Forest Service last year is modest compared to the amount needed to restore fire-resilience in federal forests. By offering producers an expanded supply of biomass, there is greater incentive to invest in the infrastructure necessary to increase biofuel production.

While the Clean Power Plan is a comprehensive policy to help the U.S. do this, a more immediate approach could be a small policy change in EISA’s definition of renewable biomass.

Support Native American communities: RIN credits linked to federally-sourced biomass can enhance partnerships between the U.S. government and tribal nations. Tribes have special access to activemanagement of federal lands. The Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA) is one mechanism that enables tribes to manage adjacent federal lands in partnership with federal entities. The TFPA empowers tribes to partner with public agencies to protect their own landscapes from environmental threats originating on adjacent federal lands. Forest fires in federal forests pose a real threat to tribal nations. In 2003, nearly 20 Indian reservations were overwhelmed by wildfires that originated on federal lands. In August 2015, President Obama issued a wildfire disaster declaration in Washington State that included four tribes.

Budgetary constraints for tribes and their federal partners have hindered TFPA progress. By allowing woody debris from federal lands to be included in the RIN program, the new biomass markets could generate revenues that help tribes and federal partners implement more active management projects with less public funding. Additional land could be treated, the resilience of federal and tribal forests could be improved, and the environmental threats from climate change could be reduced across landscapes. This would also allow tribes to use RIN value to catalyze economic development and employment opportunities.

Woody waste generated from forest restoration and timber harvest on the reservation of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes is being chipped and hauled to a processing facility to be turned into jet fuel as part of the USDA-funded NARA project. (NARA photo)

All three of these benefits show how a simple change in policy can create larger scale cross-jurisdiction cooperation to address climate change. The Paris commitment calls on the world’s nations to pursue sweeping changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While the Clean Power Plan is a comprehensive policy to help the U.S. do this, a more immediate approach could be a small policy change in EISA’s definition of renewable biomass.

Authors

In the wake of the COP21 international climate negotiations that culminated in the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise, the Obama administration looked to its Clean Power Plan (CPP) as the centerpiece of its emissions reduction approach. But with the recent Supreme Court “motion to stay,” the CPP is at a temporary halt. As the CPP makes its way through the courts, it is important to consider an alternative and achievable policy that can help the U.S. meet its long-term climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.

In fire prone forests like those on the reservation of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, woody debris left after forest thinning or other forestry operations is normally piled and burned to eliminate it as potential hazardous fuel. (NARA Photo)

Is redefining renewable biomass the answer?

One solution that has the potential to substantially curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a change in the Energy Independence and Security Act’s (EISA) definition of “renewable biomass.” Renewable biomass is an energy source that can be used for heat, electricity or to power transportation through its conversion into liquid fuel, known as biofuel. Energy from biomass represents close to half of all renewable energy production. In practical terms, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines biomass as live or dead organic matter. But, for legal purposes, biomass can have much more specific definitions.

Since 2004, either federal law or the tax code has incorporated 14 different biomass definitions. EISA’s definition of renewable biomass determines what raw materials qualify for credits known as Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs). RIN credits serve as a compliance currency for fossil fuel producers to buy or sell to meet their annual renewable fuel obligation. Today, EISA’s definition contains several biomass sources, but the one with the greatest potential for solving multiple environmental challenges is tied to woody debris from forestry operations. Unfortunately, the specific biomass definition that qualifies for RIN credits is woody debris that originates “… from non-federal forestland including forestland belonging to an Indian tribe or an Indian individual …” This limits the more than 251 million acres of national forestland that could provide additional woody debris into the renewable fuel stream. A small tweak to EISA’s language can ascribe RIN credits to renewable fuel derived from woody biomass that originates across all lands. An all-lands approach that expands the amount of biomass that qualifies for RIN credits can offer a pathway to GHG emission reductions, greater innovation in low carbon fuels, and stronger support for U.S. Native American communities.

In 2014, the U.S. House of Representatives considered a change to EISA’s definition of renewable biomass through the American Energy Opportunity Act (AEOA). The AEOA’s proposed change in definition would have expanded renewable biomass to include woody debris from forestry operations on all lands (including federal forestlands). The potential impact of an all-lands definition for renewable biomass would have been substantial. This bill did not pass, so federal lands continue to be excluded as a source of renewable biomass under EISA.

One solution that has the potential to substantially curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a change in the Energy Independence and Security Act’s (EISA) definition of “renewable biomass.”

What are the policy outcomes for a resilient, low-carbon and prosperous future?

Emission reductions: Increasing the economic value of biomass can reduce emissions and wildfires by promoting forest fuel reduction. Today, markets for forest residues are largely undeveloped, so the biomass is waste that is commonly disposed of by burning. The ability to retrieve the monetary value of RINs from biomass removed from federal lands will encourage additional forest thinning to curb catastrophic wildfires, GHG emissions, and improve the environment. The potential for impact is substantial; about 4-6 percent of the continental U.S.’s annual emissions come from forest fires, and healthy forestlands can sequester approximately 12 percent of the national emissions annually. Through the expansion of forest thinning, a larger fraction of our forestlands can become more fire resilient. The receipt of RIN credits from renewable fuel generated from all forest lands could motivate more fuel reduction efforts by offering a new stream of monetary support.

Innovation in low-carbon fuels: The growth in available feedstock that qualifies for RINs can contribute to attainment of national biofuel and renewable energy production goals. Biofuel productionbenefits from economies of scale. Substantially increased supply of biomass will promote further investment to encourage the development of more renewable energy. Under EISA’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), cellulosic biofuel producers have chronically fallen short of the mandates; this year 230 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel is ordered to be blended with transportation fuel.

The proposal to redefine biomass to include federal lands can only help cellulosic biofuel producers meet their RFS mandates. Investment and growth of the cellulosic biofuel industry has been slow to develop for several reasons, including biomass supply risks. Access to one of the nation’s largest potential sources of forest biomass — federal lands — will lower the cost of RIN-eligible renewable fuel. Biomass generated from an incentivized-expansion of forest thinning activities on federal land would reduce supply risk and fire risk. The 2.2 million tons of woody biomass made available through collaborative efforts by the Forest Service last year is modest compared to the amount needed to restore fire-resilience in federal forests. By offering producers an expanded supply of biomass, there is greater incentive to invest in the infrastructure necessary to increase biofuel production.

While the Clean Power Plan is a comprehensive policy to help the U.S. do this, a more immediate approach could be a small policy change in EISA’s definition of renewable biomass.

Support Native American communities: RIN credits linked to federally-sourced biomass can enhance partnerships between the U.S. government and tribal nations. Tribes have special access to activemanagement of federal lands. The Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA) is one mechanism that enables tribes to manage adjacent federal lands in partnership with federal entities. The TFPA empowers tribes to partner with public agencies to protect their own landscapes from environmental threats originating on adjacent federal lands. Forest fires in federal forests pose a real threat to tribal nations. In 2003, nearly 20 Indian reservations were overwhelmed by wildfires that originated on federal lands. In August 2015, President Obama issued a wildfire disaster declaration in Washington State that included four tribes.

Budgetary constraints for tribes and their federal partners have hindered TFPA progress. By allowing woody debris from federal lands to be included in the RIN program, the new biomass markets could generate revenues that help tribes and federal partners implement more active management projects with less public funding. Additional land could be treated, the resilience of federal and tribal forests could be improved, and the environmental threats from climate change could be reduced across landscapes. This would also allow tribes to use RIN value to catalyze economic development and employment opportunities.

Woody waste generated from forest restoration and timber harvest on the reservation of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes is being chipped and hauled to a processing facility to be turned into jet fuel as part of the USDA-funded NARA project. (NARA photo)

All three of these benefits show how a simple change in policy can create larger scale cross-jurisdiction cooperation to address climate change. The Paris commitment calls on the world’s nations to pursue sweeping changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While the Clean Power Plan is a comprehensive policy to help the U.S. do this, a more immediate approach could be a small policy change in EISA’s definition of renewable biomass.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed implementation of the Clean Power Plan (CPP), preventing the Obama administration from taking steps to carry out one of its central environmental initiatives, shocking both opponents and proponents.

Recently, the Climate and Energy Economics Project at Brookings hosted two former governors along with environmental policy experts to discuss the Clean Power Plan, its importance, the challenges it faces, and how the United States can be a role model for decarbonization. Former Governors Bill Ritter (D-CO) and Christie Todd Whitman (R-NJ) discussed the drastic impact of the environment on national security, how states can continue work on implementation plans despite the uncertainty created by the Supreme Court, and the U.S.’s commitments to the international community. The conversation was moderated by Economic Studies Senior Fellow Adele Morris.

Governor Whitman framed clean energy as a health issue for the country. She noted that 93,000 people died from dirty air in the United States in 2013 and lamented that this problem does not get enough attention from the American public or politicians. Watch:

Clean energy as a health issue for the U.S.

In his opening remarks, Governor Ritter discussed individual state actions to decarbonize and explained what the current Supreme Court decision means for the movement. Watch:

Interpreting the Supreme Court’s decision on the Clean Power Plan

Governor Whitman, while lauding the international community’s actions to preserve the environment, explained how positive actions taken by the U.S. are undermined by its failure to live up to commitments it has made to the international community. She argued that the U.S.’s failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol or meet its decarbonization promises is equivalent to “flipping the bird” to countries that care about energy emissions. Watch:

U.S. is haunted by failure to live up to past commitments

Governor Ritter expressed disappointment in Congress’s lack of decisive action on decarbonization and other climate measures. He praised the Clean Power Plan as the “crown jewel of Obama’s Climate Action Plan” and commended the recent and coming actions on energy policy made by the international community. Watch:

Congress’s lack of decisive action on climate

This event also included a panel discussion with experts on environmental policy and politics who discussed data issues, political sustainability, and the role of state and local governments in energy policy and the implementation of the Clean Power Plan. This panel included Greg R. White, executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners; Jonas Monast, director of the Climate and Energy Program at Duke University; Josh Linn of Resources for the Future, and Brookings Fellow Philip A. Wallach.

Authors

Shawn Dhar

Fred Dews

]]>
Thu, 24 Mar 2016 16:00:00 -0400Shawn Dhar and Fred Dews

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed implementation of the Clean Power Plan (CPP), preventing the Obama administration from taking steps to carry out one of its central environmental initiatives, shocking both opponents and proponents.

Recently, the Climate and Energy Economics Project at Brookings hosted two former governors along with environmental policy experts to discuss the Clean Power Plan, its importance, the challenges it faces, and how the United States can be a role model for decarbonization. Former Governors Bill Ritter (D-CO) and Christie Todd Whitman (R-NJ) discussed the drastic impact of the environment on national security, how states can continue work on implementation plans despite the uncertainty created by the Supreme Court, and the U.S.’s commitments to the international community. The conversation was moderated by Economic Studies Senior Fellow Adele Morris.

Governor Whitman framed clean energy as a health issue for the country. She noted that 93,000 people died from dirty air in the United States in 2013 and lamented that this problem does not get enough attention from the American public or politicians. Watch:

Clean energy as a health issue for the U.S.

In his opening remarks, Governor Ritter discussed individual state actions to decarbonize and explained what the current Supreme Court decision means for the movement. Watch:

Interpreting the Supreme Court’s decision on the Clean Power Plan

Governor Whitman, while lauding the international community’s actions to preserve the environment, explained how positive actions taken by the U.S. are undermined by its failure to live up to commitments it has made to the international community. She argued that the U.S.’s failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol or meet its decarbonization promises is equivalent to “flipping the bird” to countries that care about energy emissions. Watch:

U.S. is haunted by failure to live up to past commitments

Governor Ritter expressed disappointment in Congress’s lack of decisive action on decarbonization and other climate measures. He praised the Clean Power Plan as the “crown jewel of Obama’s Climate Action Plan” and commended the recent and coming actions on energy policy made by the international community. Watch:

Congress’s lack of decisive action on climate

This event also included a panel discussion with experts on environmental policy and politics who discussed data issues, political sustainability, and the role of state and local governments in energy policy and the implementation of the Clean Power Plan. This panel included Greg R. White, executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners; Jonas Monast, director of the Climate and Energy Program at Duke University; Josh Linn of Resources for the Future, and Brookings Fellow Philip A. Wallach.

Editors' Note: This post is based on a forthcoming book by Vanda Felbab-Brown titled "The Extinction Market: Wildlife Trafficking and How to Counter It."

As the world celebrates World Wildlife Day on March 3, the planet is experiencing alarming levels of species loss—caused, in large part, by intensified poaching. Wildlife trafficking and its associated activities affect national and international security in a myriad of ways: They can provide support to criminal groups, increase risks of health epidemics, and further degrade the already fragile ecological systems on which humans depend. Efforts to combat wildlife trafficking, meanwhile, provide new opportunities for cooperation between the United States and China, among other countries.

Emptying forests, savannahs, and oceans

This unrelenting poaching crisis has been under way for well over a decade. It’s stimulated by the greatly expanding demand for animals, plants, and wildlife products particularly in China, East Asia, and among East Asian communities around the world. The crisis has been enabled by extensive and increasing corruption among park rangers and customs officials in many wildlife source countries, including in Southern and Eastern Africa and Southeast Asia. The problem has also been exacerbated by the complicity of local communities living near parks, and facilitated by the sheer scale of legal trade among which wildlife contraband hides. The growing firepower of poachers and desperation of policies adopted in response—such as to shoot poachers on sight—have multiplied the violence levels associated with poaching and wildlife trafficking.

Elephants, rhinoceros, and tigers are being illegally slaughtered at massive rates. Beyond those iconic species, many other animals are captured, killed, and trafficked for trinkets, for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) substances, or for the global pet trade. In combination with habitat destruction and global warming, hunting and poaching might eliminate entire genera of species, further undermining remaining ecosystems.

Although East Asian countries—particularly China, Vietnam, and Thailand—are the key consumption and demand markets, the United States is widely believed to be the country with the second-largest consumer market for trafficked wildlife. But new demand (and supply) markets are once again rising in Latin America: Much illegal trade in parrots takes place in Brazil, for example, and many affluent Mexicans love boots made of snake skins. Demand also comes from other places often ignored in the story of the global slaughter, including in various East and West African countries (which are often described merely as source countries). Oceans are being emptied of creatures as well, be they sharks, tuna, sea cucumbers, or seahorses.

At our own risk

The rate of species extinction, now as much as 1,000 times the historical average—and the worst since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago—deserves to be seen, like climate change, as a global ecological catastrophe. It merits high-level policy initiatives to address its human causes.

In addition to irretrievable biodiversity loss and economic losses due to ecosystem degradation, wildlife trafficking also poses serious threats to public health. Diseases linked to wildlife trafficking and consumption of wild animals have included SARS and Ebola. Wildlife trafficking could thus be the trigger of a global pandemic.

Wildlife trafficking can also support other forms of organized crime and fuels violent conflict, though the links are often exaggerated. Militancy represents just a sliver of wildlife trafficking.

Could ivory laundering soon be ended?

At this moment of acute crisis, wildlife trafficking is attaining unprecedented policy attention. The United Nations Security Council has discussed how to stop wildlife trafficking, and the goal of eliminating the problem was incorporated into the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Wildlife trafficking has also been an important subject in the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. The governments of the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany have increased spending on combating wildlife trafficking around the world, expanding the menu of the diplomatic and law enforcement efforts, as well as plans to provide alternative livelihoods and reduce demand.

Perhaps most important, the United States and China have committed themselves to fighting global poaching. The United States has tightened many of its own rules, trying to close loopholes for the laundering of trafficked wildlife. For years, indifferent and even outright complicit in global wildlife trafficking, Chinese law enforcement agencies have confiscated and crushed illegal ivory and seized other illegal wildlife products—such as rhino horn and Asian black bear paws—in several raids. (However, systematic enforcement of wildlife regulations is not yet frequent or a priority for Chinese authorities.)

Crucially, after years of international lobbying, China promised in 2015 to declare illegal its official market for ivory, which had been a crucial driver of elephant poaching and a facilitator of ivory laundering. China has not said when this will take effect, but there is a widespread expectation that the market will be prohibited by the end of 2016. In January 2016, Hong Kong’s leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, followed China’s example and announced that Hong Kong, too, will totally ban the sale of ivory—once again without specifying when. The decision is still welcome, since Hong Kong has long served as perhaps the major hub of ivory carving and laundering.

Paradoxically, China’s economic downturn may be good for wildlife and conservation efforts: with less disposable income, wealthy and middle-class Chinese and East Asian consumers may spend less on wildlife luxury goods, giving animals around the world a breathing pause.

An animal carer feeds a baby female pangolin with liquified food from a syringe at Bangkok's Dusit Zoo, one of several hundred mammals recently seized in raids by Thai police. Credit: Reuters.

Keeping wild things wild and abundant

It’s not enough to provide temporary reprieve, or to tighten the trade loopholes that allow laundering of ivory, rhino horn, geckos, and many other animals. Nor is it enough to simply beef-up interdiction, or even to vastly improve the economic alternatives to poaching in order to motivate local communities to buy in to conservation.

The bottom line is that demand for wildlife products must be reduced and kept low. To reduce demand, messaging campaigns should emphasize less altruistic appeals and long-term negative public goods consequence rather than the immediate personal costs of consuming wildlife. In particular, this includes stressing the negative effects to one’s health, such as emphasizing high mercury content in shark fins. Visible dramatic health consequences often were the mobilization core of other environmental campaigns, such as against acid rain and ozone depletion. Anti-poaching and anti-wildlife consumption campaigns should further seek not only to debunk the bogus purported benefits of consuming wildlife to one’s sexual life, such as that consuming rhino horn powder will enhance sexual prowess, but in fact emphasize the outright negative sexual effects—namely, that consuming wildlife products or having them in one’s possession will severely negatively affect the prospects for dating. This latter method has been effective in reducing cigarette and drug use. Moreover, campaigns to reduce demand for wildlife should focus on resistance to peer pressure and not rely on general awareness programs.

There is no silver bullet in policy to stop the bullets of poachers. Nor is there a one-shoe-fits-all design, and policy choices are highly contingent on specific settings. But that does not mean that we should give up the efforts to stop poaching. It is our moral imperative as well as in our own self-interest to do all we can to preserve the planet’s species and biodiversity.

Authors

Editors' Note: This post is based on a forthcoming book by Vanda Felbab-Brown titled "The Extinction Market: Wildlife Trafficking and How to Counter It."

As the world celebrates World Wildlife Day on March 3, the planet is experiencing alarming levels of species loss—caused, in large part, by intensified poaching. Wildlife trafficking and its associated activities affect national and international security in a myriad of ways: They can provide support to criminal groups, increase risks of health epidemics, and further degrade the already fragile ecological systems on which humans depend. Efforts to combat wildlife trafficking, meanwhile, provide new opportunities for cooperation between the United States and China, among other countries.

Emptying forests, savannahs, and oceans

This unrelenting poaching crisis has been under way for well over a decade. It’s stimulated by the greatly expanding demand for animals, plants, and wildlife products particularly in China, East Asia, and among East Asian communities around the world. The crisis has been enabled by extensive and increasing corruption among park rangers and customs officials in many wildlife source countries, including in Southern and Eastern Africa and Southeast Asia. The problem has also been exacerbated by the complicity of local communities living near parks, and facilitated by the sheer scale of legal trade among which wildlife contraband hides. The growing firepower of poachers and desperation of policies adopted in response—such as to shoot poachers on sight—have multiplied the violence levels associated with poaching and wildlife trafficking.

Elephants, rhinoceros, and tigers are being illegally slaughtered at massive rates. Beyond those iconic species, many other animals are captured, killed, and trafficked for trinkets, for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) substances, or for the global pet trade. In combination with habitat destruction and global warming, hunting and poaching might eliminate entire genera of species, further undermining remaining ecosystems.

Although East Asian countries—particularly China, Vietnam, and Thailand—are the key consumption and demand markets, the United States is widely believed to be the country with the second-largest consumer market for trafficked wildlife. But new demand (and supply) markets are once again rising in Latin America: Much illegal trade in parrots takes place in Brazil, for example, and many affluent Mexicans love boots made of snake skins. Demand also comes from other places often ignored in the story of the global slaughter, including in various East and West African countries (which are often described merely as source countries). Oceans are being emptied of creatures as well, be they sharks, tuna, sea cucumbers, or seahorses.

At our own risk

The rate of species extinction, now as much as 1,000 times the historical average—and the worst since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago—deserves to be seen, like climate change, as a global ecological catastrophe. It merits high-level policy initiatives to address its human causes.

In addition to irretrievable biodiversity loss and economic losses due to ecosystem degradation, wildlife trafficking also poses serious threats to public health. Diseases linked to wildlife trafficking and consumption of wild animals have included SARS and Ebola. Wildlife trafficking could thus be the trigger of a global pandemic.

Wildlife trafficking can also support other forms of organized crime and fuels violent conflict, though the links are often exaggerated. Militancy represents just a sliver of wildlife trafficking.

Could ivory laundering soon be ended?

At this moment of acute crisis, wildlife trafficking is attaining unprecedented policy attention. The United Nations Security Council has discussed how to stop wildlife trafficking, and the goal of eliminating the problem was incorporated into the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Wildlife trafficking has also been an important subject in the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. The governments of the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany have increased spending on combating wildlife trafficking around the world, expanding the menu of the diplomatic and law enforcement efforts, as well as plans to provide alternative livelihoods and reduce demand.

Perhaps most important, the United States and China have committed themselves to fighting global poaching. The United States has tightened many of its own rules, trying to close loopholes for the laundering of trafficked wildlife. For years, indifferent and even outright complicit in global wildlife trafficking, Chinese law enforcement agencies have confiscated and crushed illegal ivory and seized other illegal wildlife products—such as rhino horn and Asian black bear paws—in several raids. (However, systematic enforcement of wildlife regulations is not yet frequent or a priority for Chinese authorities.)

Crucially, after years of international lobbying, China promised in 2015 to declare illegal its official market for ivory, which had been a crucial driver of elephant poaching and a facilitator of ivory laundering. China has not said when this will take effect, but there is a widespread expectation that the market will be prohibited by the end of 2016. In January 2016, Hong Kong’s leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, followed China’s example and announced that Hong Kong, too, will totally ban the sale of ivory—once again without specifying when. The decision is still welcome, since Hong Kong has long served as perhaps the major hub of ivory carving and laundering.

Paradoxically, China’s economic downturn may be good for wildlife and conservation efforts: with less disposable income, wealthy and middle-class Chinese and East Asian consumers may spend less on wildlife luxury goods, giving animals around the world a breathing pause.

An animal carer feeds a baby female pangolin with liquified food from a syringe at Bangkok's Dusit Zoo, one of several hundred mammals recently seized in raids by Thai police. Credit: Reuters.

Keeping wild things wild and abundant

It’s not enough to provide temporary reprieve, or to tighten the trade loopholes that allow laundering of ivory, rhino horn, geckos, and many other animals. Nor is it enough to simply beef-up interdiction, or even to vastly improve the economic alternatives to poaching in order to motivate local communities to buy in to conservation.

The bottom line is that demand for wildlife products must be reduced and kept low. To reduce demand, messaging campaigns should emphasize less altruistic appeals and long-term negative public goods consequence rather than the immediate personal costs of consuming wildlife. In particular, this includes stressing the negative effects to one’s health, such as emphasizing high mercury content in shark fins. Visible dramatic health consequences often were the mobilization core of other environmental campaigns, such as against acid rain and ozone depletion. Anti-poaching and anti-wildlife consumption campaigns should further seek not only to debunk the bogus purported benefits of consuming wildlife to one’s sexual life, such as that consuming rhino horn powder will enhance sexual prowess, but in fact emphasize the outright negative sexual effects—namely, that consuming wildlife products or having them in one’s possession will severely negatively affect the prospects for dating. This latter method has been effective in reducing cigarette and drug use. Moreover, campaigns to reduce demand for wildlife should focus on resistance to peer pressure and not rely on general awareness programs.

There is no silver bullet in policy to stop the bullets of poachers. Nor is there a one-shoe-fits-all design, and policy choices are highly contingent on specific settings. But that does not mean that we should give up the efforts to stop poaching. It is our moral imperative as well as in our own self-interest to do all we can to preserve the planet’s species and biodiversity.

Graphics created by Rachel Slattery.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2016/01/13-obama-sotu-climate-change-roberts?rssid=environment{62BBB754-919A-45BE-8F5C-C3428262291F}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/132779023/0/brookingsrss/topics/environment~President-Obama%e2%80%99s-final-State-of-the-Union-address-and-climate-changePresident Obama’s final State of the Union address and climate change

President Obama’s last State of the Union address went long on making America a better place with unity and respect, on the perils of Islamophobia, on the need for American engagement in the world, and on stepping back from the knee-jerk policeman role that has gotten us sucked into some endless wars.

Reuters/Evan Vucci/Pool - U.S. President Barack Obama emphasizes a point while delivering his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in Washington, DC, January 12, 2016

There were some strong but fleeting lines about climate change, but the President declined to take a real victory lap on the Paris agreement from December, which he and his White House staff earned. Given the likely assault from members of the Republican party on his ability to follow through on even this non-binding pact, doing some sales work on its value and the voluntary and universal nature of its approach would have been prudent. If the Paris agreement’s controversial voluntaristic approach works, climate change is emerging as a legacy issue for the president.

He did not spend precious time refuting climate skeptics. Rather, he ridiculed them as likely to be “lonely” if they continued to do so, since nearly all scientists, most businesses, all nations on Earth, and majorities of the population support the science and agree on the need for strong action to respond. Demeaning the concerns of those who question the reality of climate change is not likely to change minds, but that may not be his goal in his final year in office.

This State of the Union address signaled that no new initiatives are likely this year on climate, but rather we should look for efforts to secure what he’s already achieved.

Some observers were hoping for a real explanation of why international action backed up by strong efforts at home are so badly needed on climate change. The president’s Clean Power Plan is also under assault in Congress. Rather, the president made the case for clean energy based on the advantage American industry will gain by investing in it. While bashing on dirty energy, he was vague on which fuels he includes in the category of dirty energy. We must "accelerate the transition away from dirty energy,” he said, “rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future.”

President Obama has made some quiet and some very major and noisier efforts on climate during his two terms. This State of the Union address signaled that no new initiatives are likely this year on climate, but rather we should look for efforts to secure what he’s already achieved. His speech gave the clean energy industry some lines to cheer, but overall he was frying bigger fish in the packed House chamber.

Authors

President Obama’s last State of the Union address went long on making America a better place with unity and respect, on the perils of Islamophobia, on the need for American engagement in the world, and on stepping back from the knee-jerk policeman role that has gotten us sucked into some endless wars.

Reuters/Evan Vucci/Pool - U.S. President Barack Obama emphasizes a point while delivering his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in Washington, DC, January 12, 2016

There were some strong but fleeting lines about climate change, but the President declined to take a real victory lap on the Paris agreement from December, which he and his White House staff earned. Given the likely assault from members of the Republican party on his ability to follow through on even this non-binding pact, doing some sales work on its value and the voluntary and universal nature of its approach would have been prudent. If the Paris agreement’s controversial voluntaristic approach works, climate change is emerging as a legacy issue for the president.

He did not spend precious time refuting climate skeptics. Rather, he ridiculed them as likely to be “lonely” if they continued to do so, since nearly all scientists, most businesses, all nations on Earth, and majorities of the population support the science and agree on the need for strong action to respond. Demeaning the concerns of those who question the reality of climate change is not likely to change minds, but that may not be his goal in his final year in office.

This State of the Union address signaled that no new initiatives are likely this year on climate, but rather we should look for efforts to secure what he’s already achieved.

Some observers were hoping for a real explanation of why international action backed up by strong efforts at home are so badly needed on climate change. The president’s Clean Power Plan is also under assault in Congress. Rather, the president made the case for clean energy based on the advantage American industry will gain by investing in it. While bashing on dirty energy, he was vague on which fuels he includes in the category of dirty energy. We must "accelerate the transition away from dirty energy,” he said, “rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future.”

President Obama has made some quiet and some very major and noisier efforts on climate during his two terms. This State of the Union address signaled that no new initiatives are likely this year on climate, but rather we should look for efforts to secure what he’s already achieved. His speech gave the clean energy industry some lines to cheer, but overall he was frying bigger fish in the packed House chamber.

I spent the past week in Bangladesh, visiting the countryside on a fascinating and heartening trip from the country’s massive capital, Dhaka, to the south, a region being hammered by climate change. I came to give some speeches and took the opportunity to see for myself how foreign aid and local sweat and equity are being used to fight the rising seas in a country so low that 30 million people may become refugees. For them to secure a livelihood in their home places, the developed countries need to be engaged, with our resources, our hands, and our minds. We simply cannot afford not to be here.

Photo credit: Timmons Roberts

After being asked for years to come, I’d finally made the trip to attend the 2nd annual Gobeshona conference, a gathering of researchers seeking to understand the reality and best policy and actions Bangladesh and other vulnerable countries can take in the face of rising seas, intensified cyclones, saltwater intrusion, fatal heat waves, and droughts. Bangladesh, with its 180 million people living on an ancient river delta, is extremely vulnerable to climate change, and has become a national laboratory for how we all are going to cope. As Dr. Saleemul Huq, who leads the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and is a world leader on adaptation, puts it, “if you want to see what climate change looks like, and more importantly, what tackling it looks like, you must come to Bangladesh. What will happen to the rest of the world tomorrow is already happening there today. The rest of the world can therefore learn from Bangladesh how to tackle the problem.”

In 2015 we saw how the influx of 1 million refugees from Syria has challenged the whole European Union system, and taxed resources and cultures across the region to keep their doors open. Imagine the disruption that might come from 30 or 300 million climate refugees if emissions are not controlled and poor nations’ needs are not addressed. Migrants are likely to follow past patterns of movement. First, they will try stay in their homelands, and if they have to move, they will seek to move to cities as close as possible to their homes, so they can remain in touch. When they get to cities, they will be forced to live in shantytowns and other “irregular settlements,” in shacks often built on precarious land in floodplains, subject to mudslides, extreme heat, and unsanitary conditions. They will be forced to work in the informal sector, earning pennies and living hand-to-mouth. Once uprooted, further disruption then can send them on to other cities or countries.

A slow-moving humanitarian crisis

I met a neighborhood of people in Khulna, a sprawling coastal zone city that has absorbed displaced people from Bangladesh’s coastal zone. Their fields are made worthless by saltwater flooding, with their wells now often too salty to drink or use for irrigation or watering animals. Tin shacks with dirt floors were packed together in one tiny piece of land they rented, with 20 families sharing cooking facilities, a water tap, and washing place.

Bangladesh, with most of its 180 million people living on an ancient river delta, is extremely vulnerable to climate change, and has become a national laboratory for how we all are going to cope.

In this way, they had adapted to climate change, in a common way that humans have throughout history: they moved and reinvented themselves in a new place. The men learned how to pull rickshaws in the savage traffic, heat, pollution, and dust of Khulna, earning a scant living through long shifts that run from morning until late at night. Some of the women have secured low-paying jobs as domestic servants for families of more means, cleaning, cooking, and caring for children. If they can, they keep in touch with the people who stayed back home, sending money when they can to their elderly parents or spouses to survive.

Migrants also will follow networks of family or friends, to neighborhoods, cities, and across oceans to places where they hear of economic opportunities. We might feel quite distant from Bangladesh, but in today’s world, 7,000 miles and 11 times zones is not an insurmountable barrier: if inequality is high enough, people will find a way to get there. For example, the January 6 edition of the Dhaka Tribune newspaper described how 15 Bangladeshis were found wandering in Nicaragua, having been robbed and abandoned by their smugglers, on their way to the United States.

Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis have already made their way to the U.S. and Europe, and more will come, following friends and family and seeking economic opportunity. And of course there are the other low-lying and drought-prone countries with hundreds of millions more of the climate vulnerable. Building and fortifying walls along our borders will simply not stop them: they will take to the waters, tunnels, or the air. This is not new. What is new is the potential scale of the “push” factors, and the preventability of this slow-moving humanitarian crisis.

There are two parts to addressing this crisis-in-the-making. First, we risk sending the global climate system into uncertain levels of destabilization if we do not urgently transform our economies away from fossil fuels. The Paris climate agreement set an aspirational goal of staying near 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, an absolutely critical focus of negotiators from the poorest and most vulnerable countries, like Bangladesh. Above that level, uncertain and very disruptive climate impacts will be set in motion. We probably need to get to zero net emissions in the wealthy nations by 2030 to stay under 1.5 degrees, with the rapidly developing nations following us by 2040, and the least developed nations by 2050. These are stunningly ambitious targets, requiring a wartime mobilization.

The other side is adaptation. I visited villages where farmers were switching from flooded field rice agriculture to prawn and fish aquaculture, raising low levees and wading into the muddy ponds every few months to collect baskets of the eight inch long crustaceans, which are sold for export and local markets. Around the ponds they grew their eggplants, tomatoes, bananas, mangos, and their goats, chickens, cows, and pigs grazed nearby. I tasted fruits I’d never heard of from trees shading their tidy villages, stepping around tarps where rice and fruits dried in the sun, as were rows of sticks covered with cow dung, for cooking fuel. They used everything, and every inch of the land was stunningly productive.

Congress needs to lead, follow, or get out of the way in scaling up adaptation finance. Otherwise, they bear their part of the responsibility for the waves of climate migrants coming to our shores and potentially destabilizing countries in Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia.

To stay there, however, many villages need to adapt to rising waters. My trip was led by ICCCAD, the climate adaptation experts, along with their local partner organization. We saw one village where all the land had been raised to stay dry in the next flood, with special raised houses, latrines, and chicken coops. They have built a floodwall against the river’s rise, and their roads still need to be raised. The villagers felt better about their likelihood of surviving the next flood, but one old woman told us that “we raised the land, but the waters keep rising. So how do we know we’ve raised things enough?”

Stepping up U.S. engagement with Bangladesh

Obviously, we don’t know how to fully adapt to climate change, but these kinds of efforts—switching to more climate resilient livelihoods, raising houses, latrines, and roads, mobilizing new technologies to take salt out of groundwater for drinking and farm use—all need to be developed and scaled up rapidly. Bangladesh is among the cutting-edge nations working on that, but there are similar efforts around the world.

The U.S. and other developed nations need to actively support these efforts, with research and support given to efforts that work. Our funding should be both direct, through “bilateral” agencies like USAID, and through “multilateral” ones, like the Green Climate Fund, created under the United Nations. The Obama administration has quietly supported this work, but much more is needed.

Congress needs to lead, follow, or get out of the way in scaling up adaptation finance. Otherwise, they bear their part of the responsibility for the waves of climate migrants coming to our shores and potentially destabilizing countries in Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia. (The same can be said, of course, about the need for them to support efforts to avoid the worst impacts of climate change in the only long-term way possible: by sharply reducing our emissions and being leaders in global efforts to cooperate in solving this crisis.)

One final point: USAID has plans to spend $30 million in Bangladesh for climate adaptation work here. This is crucial work, and USAID is already making a difference here. This work is hugely important diplomacy. But USAID is barely able to do its job here. In what I perceive to be an overreaction to security concerns, USAID and U.S. State Department staff are highly confined in their movements. They are essentially locked in their living quarters and offices in the sprawling red-brick and razor-wired U.S. Embassy compound, which tellingly looks like a medium-security prison. The prisoners, of course, are our representatives, unable to get out into the community to build partnerships, check on the progress of our aid projects, and keep America popular among Bangladeshis. Their families are being increasingly segregated and separated from local people. Replacing staff has grown nearly impossible in this stifling context.

Photo credit: Timmons Roberts

Perhaps there is a post-Benghazi reason for this fear, but it is self-defeating if our goal is to build goodwill and help this dynamic nation continue to move forward. I was quite stunned by the buzz of economic activity in Bangladesh—the wheels of production and commerce are turning on every inch of land. Poverty and sanitation and education have improved by leaps and bounds since the country’s founding just 45 years ago. With this dynamism, creativity, and resources, Bangladesh can handle a lot of climate change, and economic change. But it needs our engagement. Fear is a self-defeating response. Let our American staff be our ambassadors. Send out the Peace Corps volunteers. Fund Americans in working with local and international organizations addressing Bangaldesh’s needs. Get the student exchanges going, and the elder exchanges. Indeed, the only response to self-defeating fear is courage, engagement, and working together to address the existential problem that is climate change.

Authors

I spent the past week in Bangladesh, visiting the countryside on a fascinating and heartening trip from the country’s massive capital, Dhaka, to the south, a region being hammered by climate change. I came to give some speeches and took the opportunity to see for myself how foreign aid and local sweat and equity are being used to fight the rising seas in a country so low that 30 million people may become refugees. For them to secure a livelihood in their home places, the developed countries need to be engaged, with our resources, our hands, and our minds. We simply cannot afford not to be here.

Photo credit: Timmons Roberts

After being asked for years to come, I’d finally made the trip to attend the 2nd annual Gobeshona conference, a gathering of researchers seeking to understand the reality and best policy and actions Bangladesh and other vulnerable countries can take in the face of rising seas, intensified cyclones, saltwater intrusion, fatal heat waves, and droughts. Bangladesh, with its 180 million people living on an ancient river delta, is extremely vulnerable to climate change, and has become a national laboratory for how we all are going to cope. As Dr. Saleemul Huq, who leads the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and is a world leader on adaptation, puts it, “if you want to see what climate change looks like, and more importantly, what tackling it looks like, you must come to Bangladesh. What will happen to the rest of the world tomorrow is already happening there today. The rest of the world can therefore learn from Bangladesh how to tackle the problem.”

In 2015 we saw how the influx of 1 million refugees from Syria has challenged the whole European Union system, and taxed resources and cultures across the region to keep their doors open. Imagine the disruption that might come from 30 or 300 million climate refugees if emissions are not controlled and poor nations’ needs are not addressed. Migrants are likely to follow past patterns of movement. First, they will try stay in their homelands, and if they have to move, they will seek to move to cities as close as possible to their homes, so they can remain in touch. When they get to cities, they will be forced to live in shantytowns and other “irregular settlements,” in shacks often built on precarious land in floodplains, subject to mudslides, extreme heat, and unsanitary conditions. They will be forced to work in the informal sector, earning pennies and living hand-to-mouth. Once uprooted, further disruption then can send them on to other cities or countries.

A slow-moving humanitarian crisis

I met a neighborhood of people in Khulna, a sprawling coastal zone city that has absorbed displaced people from Bangladesh’s coastal zone. Their fields are made worthless by saltwater flooding, with their wells now often too salty to drink or use for irrigation or watering animals. Tin shacks with dirt floors were packed together in one tiny piece of land they rented, with 20 families sharing cooking facilities, a water tap, and washing place.

Bangladesh, with most of its 180 million people living on an ancient river delta, is extremely vulnerable to climate change, and has become a national laboratory for how we all are going to cope.

In this way, they had adapted to climate change, in a common way that humans have throughout history: they moved and reinvented themselves in a new place. The men learned how to pull rickshaws in the savage traffic, heat, pollution, and dust of Khulna, earning a scant living through long shifts that run from morning until late at night. Some of the women have secured low-paying jobs as domestic servants for families of more means, cleaning, cooking, and caring for children. If they can, they keep in touch with the people who stayed back home, sending money when they can to their elderly parents or spouses to survive.

Migrants also will follow networks of family or friends, to neighborhoods, cities, and across oceans to places where they hear of economic opportunities. We might feel quite distant from Bangladesh, but in today’s world, 7,000 miles and 11 times zones is not an insurmountable barrier: if inequality is high enough, people will find a way to get there. For example, the January 6 edition of the Dhaka Tribune newspaper described how 15 Bangladeshis were found wandering in Nicaragua, having been robbed and abandoned by their smugglers, on their way to the United States.

Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis have already made their way to the U.S. and Europe, and more will come, following friends and family and seeking economic opportunity. And of course there are the other low-lying and drought-prone countries with hundreds of millions more of the climate vulnerable. Building and fortifying walls along our borders will simply not stop them: they will take to the waters, tunnels, or the air. This is not new. What is new is the potential scale of the “push” factors, and the preventability of this slow-moving humanitarian crisis.

There are two parts to addressing this crisis-in-the-making. First, we risk sending the global climate system into uncertain levels of destabilization if we do not urgently transform our economies away from fossil fuels. The Paris climate agreement set an aspirational goal of staying near 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, an absolutely critical focus of negotiators from the poorest and most vulnerable countries, like Bangladesh. Above that level, uncertain and very disruptive climate impacts will be set in motion. We probably need to get to zero net emissions in the wealthy nations by 2030 to stay under 1.5 degrees, with the rapidly developing nations following us by 2040, and the least developed nations by 2050. These are stunningly ambitious targets, requiring a wartime mobilization.

The other side is adaptation. I visited villages where farmers were switching from flooded field rice agriculture to prawn and fish aquaculture, raising low levees and wading into the muddy ponds every few months to collect baskets of the eight inch long crustaceans, which are sold for export and local markets. Around the ponds they grew their eggplants, tomatoes, bananas, mangos, and their goats, chickens, cows, and pigs grazed nearby. I tasted fruits I’d never heard of from trees shading their tidy villages, stepping around tarps where rice and fruits dried in the sun, as were rows of sticks covered with cow dung, for cooking fuel. They used everything, and every inch of the land was stunningly productive.

Congress needs to lead, follow, or get out of the way in scaling up adaptation finance. Otherwise, they bear their part of the responsibility for the waves of climate migrants coming to our shores and potentially destabilizing countries in Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia.

To stay there, however, many villages need to adapt to rising waters. My trip was led by ICCCAD, the climate adaptation experts, along with their local partner organization. We saw one village where all the land had been raised to stay dry in the next flood, with special raised houses, latrines, and chicken coops. They have built a floodwall against the river’s rise, and their roads still need to be raised. The villagers felt better about their likelihood of surviving the next flood, but one old woman told us that “we raised the land, but the waters keep rising. So how do we know we’ve raised things enough?”

Stepping up U.S. engagement with Bangladesh

Obviously, we don’t know how to fully adapt to climate change, but these kinds of efforts—switching to more climate resilient livelihoods, raising houses, latrines, and roads, mobilizing new technologies to take salt out of groundwater for drinking and farm use—all need to be developed and scaled up rapidly. Bangladesh is among the cutting-edge nations working on that, but there are similar efforts around the world.

The U.S. and other developed nations need to actively support these efforts, with research and support given to efforts that work. Our funding should be both direct, through “bilateral” agencies like USAID, and through “multilateral” ones, like the Green Climate Fund, created under the United Nations. The Obama administration has quietly supported this work, but much more is needed.

Congress needs to lead, follow, or get out of the way in scaling up adaptation finance. Otherwise, they bear their part of the responsibility for the waves of climate migrants coming to our shores and potentially destabilizing countries in Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia. (The same can be said, of course, about the need for them to support efforts to avoid the worst impacts of climate change in the only long-term way possible: by sharply reducing our emissions and being leaders in global efforts to cooperate in solving this crisis.)

One final point: USAID has plans to spend $30 million in Bangladesh for climate adaptation work here. This is crucial work, and USAID is already making a difference here. This work is hugely important diplomacy. But USAID is barely able to do its job here. In what I perceive to be an overreaction to security concerns, USAID and U.S. State Department staff are highly confined in their movements. They are essentially locked in their living quarters and offices in the sprawling red-brick and razor-wired U.S. Embassy compound, which tellingly looks like a medium-security prison. The prisoners, of course, are our representatives, unable to get out into the community to build partnerships, check on the progress of our aid projects, and keep America popular among Bangladeshis. Their families are being increasingly segregated and separated from local people. Replacing staff has grown nearly impossible in this stifling context.

Photo credit: Timmons Roberts

Perhaps there is a post-Benghazi reason for this fear, but it is self-defeating if our goal is to build goodwill and help this dynamic nation continue to move forward. I was quite stunned by the buzz of economic activity in Bangladesh—the wheels of production and commerce are turning on every inch of land. Poverty and sanitation and education have improved by leaps and bounds since the country’s founding just 45 years ago. With this dynamism, creativity, and resources, Bangladesh can handle a lot of climate change, and economic change. But it needs our engagement. Fear is a self-defeating response. Let our American staff be our ambassadors. Send out the Peace Corps volunteers. Fund Americans in working with local and international organizations addressing Bangaldesh’s needs. Get the student exchanges going, and the elder exchanges. Indeed, the only response to self-defeating fear is courage, engagement, and working together to address the existential problem that is climate change.

The agreements reached at the Paris climate summit at the end of 2015 bought the global economy some desperately needed breathing room to shift to a low-carbon growth path. But for these commitments to make any difference on the ground, market forces must spur changes in the basic motivation that decides business activities. This will happen if—and only if—the economics profession builds in low-carbon measures in the investments and policies they routinely promote for economic growth.

After all, climate change is determined as much by economics as by science. So long as there is no price for air, businesses will continue to emit carbon without restraint. But emissions hurt everyone, not just emitters. Economic theory is clear that these spillover effects (or externalities) must be priced. But mainstream economists model economic growth without accounting for emissions and their damages, and businesses respond to the faulty signals.

To be sure, recent papers have called attention to the punishing costs of climate change. Moreover, economists have proposed carbon taxes to make emitters pay. But where it really matters for the directions countries take, growth policy does not see investing in natural capital the same way it does in physical capital or in human capital. Projections, be they from the prestigious International Monetary Fund or from international banks, would have you believe that growth can continue indefinitely without taking climate action.

This failure of economists and businesses goes further. Mainstream policy advice has not only ignored climatic impact as a game changer, but has long viewed environmental protection, the foremost climate action, as a drain on growth. Consider these examples at the institutional level and the global level.

In the World Bank’s ease of doing business index, a country can improve its ranking by lowering environmental protection. Adulation from the Economist or the Financial Times and self-congratulation follow surveys, even as this is a deeply flawed indicator favoring unbridled deregulation. Now a recent proposal at the World Bank—not dissimilar to some of the thinking at the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank—is to weaken environmental and social safeguards that accompany investment projects, even though damages from such tactics to speed loan processing have proven to be self-defeating.

At the global level, it is striking that delegates from 195 nations at the Paris summit agreed to keep the world temperature within 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrialization level. But equally remarkable is that they could not match that realization with binding commitments of measures that would deliver the needed carbon targets. Even as inaction spells doom to growth and well-being, the collective response falls dangerously short because of the opposing—and ultimately wrong—belief that climate measures are a drag on growth.

The economics profession must relentlessly factor in the cost of climate change and the benefits of action, just as it did the gains from investment in education or financial infrastructure. Economists influenced open trade, agricultural price liberalization, and macroeconomic stability: they must do the same for climate change.

Three reasons explain why economics, business, and politics have downplayed environmental spillovers—measurement problems, emphasis on short-term gains, and business lobbies. What matters is what you can measure. The health costs of global warming are hard to measure and so they get short shrift. Furthermore, a herd mentality in pushing for immediate growth keeps economists from tabling concerns about sustainable growth. Immediate growth coincides with electoral cycles, which leads politicians to ignore future costs. Also, special interests block efforts to make firms pay for damages inflicted. Some accuse corporations of spreading uncertainty about climate change, for example, Exxon Mobil allegedly suppressing evidence on fossil-fuels.

Switching to a low-carbon economy

Externalities do eventually get addressed when their costs become unbearable. So sooner or later we’ll switch to a low-carbon economy. The question is: how quickly? That shift should aim for a soft, not a hard landing, for which three urgent steps are necessary.

First, economists must develop measures of hard-to-estimate climate impacts, and integrate them into the growth calculus for policy. Second, business leaders should insist that the carbon footprint accompanies every investment, analogous to other requirements like having a tax registry, and international banks should stop financing coal projects. Third, economic advice on growth policies should signal that sound regulation supports—and does not detract from—lasting growth. Integral to this advice must be the removal of subsidies for fossil fuels and the imposition of carbon taxes.

Global warming is far and away the biggest known barrier to continuing economic growth. The economics profession charged with guiding growth and people’s well-being cannot remain ambivalent, but must help blaze a new trail.

Authors

Vinod Thomas

]]>
Fri, 08 Jan 2016 09:24:00 -0500Vinod Thomas

The agreements reached at the Paris climate summit at the end of 2015 bought the global economy some desperately needed breathing room to shift to a low-carbon growth path. But for these commitments to make any difference on the ground, market forces must spur changes in the basic motivation that decides business activities. This will happen if—and only if—the economics profession builds in low-carbon measures in the investments and policies they routinely promote for economic growth.

After all, climate change is determined as much by economics as by science. So long as there is no price for air, businesses will continue to emit carbon without restraint. But emissions hurt everyone, not just emitters. Economic theory is clear that these spillover effects (or externalities) must be priced. But mainstream economists model economic growth without accounting for emissions and their damages, and businesses respond to the faulty signals.

To be sure, recent papers have called attention to the punishing costs of climate change. Moreover, economists have proposed carbon taxes to make emitters pay. But where it really matters for the directions countries take, growth policy does not see investing in natural capital the same way it does in physical capital or in human capital. Projections, be they from the prestigious International Monetary Fund or from international banks, would have you believe that growth can continue indefinitely without taking climate action.

This failure of economists and businesses goes further. Mainstream policy advice has not only ignored climatic impact as a game changer, but has long viewed environmental protection, the foremost climate action, as a drain on growth. Consider these examples at the institutional level and the global level.

In the World Bank’s ease of doing business index, a country can improve its ranking by lowering environmental protection. Adulation from the Economist or the Financial Times and self-congratulation follow surveys, even as this is a deeply flawed indicator favoring unbridled deregulation. Now a recent proposal at the World Bank—not dissimilar to some of the thinking at the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank—is to weaken environmental and social safeguards that accompany investment projects, even though damages from such tactics to speed loan processing have proven to be self-defeating.

At the global level, it is striking that delegates from 195 nations at the Paris summit agreed to keep the world temperature within 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrialization level. But equally remarkable is that they could not match that realization with binding commitments of measures that would deliver the needed carbon targets. Even as inaction spells doom to growth and well-being, the collective response falls dangerously short because of the opposing—and ultimately wrong—belief that climate measures are a drag on growth.

The economics profession must relentlessly factor in the cost of climate change and the benefits of action, just as it did the gains from investment in education or financial infrastructure. Economists influenced open trade, agricultural price liberalization, and macroeconomic stability: they must do the same for climate change.

Three reasons explain why economics, business, and politics have downplayed environmental spillovers—measurement problems, emphasis on short-term gains, and business lobbies. What matters is what you can measure. The health costs of global warming are hard to measure and so they get short shrift. Furthermore, a herd mentality in pushing for immediate growth keeps economists from tabling concerns about sustainable growth. Immediate growth coincides with electoral cycles, which leads politicians to ignore future costs. Also, special interests block efforts to make firms pay for damages inflicted. Some accuse corporations of spreading uncertainty about climate change, for example, Exxon Mobil allegedly suppressing evidence on fossil-fuels.

Switching to a low-carbon economy

Externalities do eventually get addressed when their costs become unbearable. So sooner or later we’ll switch to a low-carbon economy. The question is: how quickly? That shift should aim for a soft, not a hard landing, for which three urgent steps are necessary.

First, economists must develop measures of hard-to-estimate climate impacts, and integrate them into the growth calculus for policy. Second, business leaders should insist that the carbon footprint accompanies every investment, analogous to other requirements like having a tax registry, and international banks should stop financing coal projects. Third, economic advice on growth policies should signal that sound regulation supports—and does not detract from—lasting growth. Integral to this advice must be the removal of subsidies for fossil fuels and the imposition of carbon taxes.

Global warming is far and away the biggest known barrier to continuing economic growth. The economics profession charged with guiding growth and people’s well-being cannot remain ambivalent, but must help blaze a new trail.

Authors

Vinod Thomas

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2015/12/22-cop21-unfinished-agenda-finance-global-south-roberts-weikmans?rssid=environment{D77A2E65-BB1C-456E-A21F-C8FA82808763}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/129638645/0/brookingsrss/topics/environment~The-unfinished-agenda-of-the-Paris-climate-talks-Finance-to-the-global-southThe unfinished agenda of the Paris climate talks: Finance to the global south

A sense of measured optimism and achievement emerged from the Paris climate conference. Diplomats, environmentalists, researchers, and other observers mostly felt relieved after years of discussions toward a new international agreement on climate change. Multilateralism had proven it might be up to the task of addressing climate change. But it’s a very mixed picture, and many of us are still trying to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of the agreement, the structure for global action it has established, and the momentum around climate action it created. As George Monbiot put it in the Guardian: “By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle. By comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.”

Reuters/Benoit Tessier - Hundreds of environmentalists arrange their bodies to form a message of hope and peace in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, December 6, 2015, as the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) continues at Le Bourget near the French capital

One area where Paris was a failure was in sorting out how adequate funding will reliably and transparently flow to help developing countries make the transition to a low carbon economy and to assist them in preparing for the impacts of climate change. That funding is fundamental to these nations acting ambitiously in the years ahead—as we all need them to do. Major funding is also needed to help them prepare for, cope with, and recover from the climate risks that are arriving and which lie ahead.

A vague but important promise

To salvage the tumultuous Copenhagen negotiations in 2009, developed countries promised to deliver $100 billion a year by 2020. The original promise was formalized the next year in Cancun. The promise was that the developed nations would provide “scaled up, new and additional, predictable and adequate funding … [with] a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion per year by 2020” to address the needs of developing countries.

There are two parts of the deal in Paris: the main and long-term “Paris Agreement,” and the “Decision” text on how that agreement will come to pass through shorter-term actions. The wording in the Paris Agreement is maddeningly oblique on the Copenhangen/Cancun pledge: “Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention.” It’s not clear which countries (Parties) are delivering how much, and when. The reference to the $100 billion or to any other quantitative target for climate finance is absent, and one would search in vain for clarity in the “Convention,” the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change drafted in Rio back in 1992.

Developed countries justified this omission by the fact that including binding targets for Parties would have made it necessary for the U.S. Senate to ratify the new agreement—instead the agreement as it is allows President Obama to ratify it by executive decree. The text of the agreement only acknowledged that “Such mobilization of climate finance should represent a progression beyond previous efforts.” So it should rise above past efforts, hopefully above the promised $100 billion.

One area where Paris was a failure was in sorting out how adequate funding will reliably and transparently flow to help developing countries make the transition to a low carbon economy and to assist them in preparing for the impacts of climate change.

Rather, the “Decision document” that lays out how the Paris Agreement will come into effect explained that the $100 billion goal would be maintained “through 2025,” but only “in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation,” and that by 2025 they would set a new goal. This is weaker than expected by developing countries who see the $100 billion as a “floor” to be surpassed immediately upon its being achieved by 2020.

Still lacking a definition

It actually gets worse. In the absence of a clear internationally agreed definition of what counts as climate finance, and of methodologies to measure it, many debates continue on what levels of funding are actually flowing to developing countries for climate objectives. This foundational effort needs to be completed before finance flows will build trust.

The Decision text (again of less importance than the Paris Agreement) calls for the development under the UNFCCC of “modalities” to account for financial resources provided to developing countries. It is a step forward that such modalities were slated in the Decision text to be considered by negotiators in November 2018. Such a decision is long overdue: observers–including ourselves–have for many years called for a robust accounting and reporting framework of climate finance under the UN Convention, which is the only globally legitimate forum for such framework to be developed. However in agreeing to postpone to 2018 the formal consideration of such a framework, Parties implicitly accept that we will continue to live in a ‘Wild West’ of climate finance for the next three years, at least. And “considering” proposed modalities in 2018 does not set a deadline for their resolution.

Is it new and/or additional?

Breaking from two decades of environmental treaty-making, the Paris Agreement did not use the term “new and additional” when referring to climate finance. For developing countries negotiators, financial flows provided for climate action should not be diverted international assistance that would have gone for building schools, roads, or hospitals. The language has always been problematic, since many funds are commingled and because climate issues need to be mainstreamed into the rest of development work. The Paris Agreement acknowledged that the provision of climate finance is to be made in continuation of developed countries’ existing obligations under the Convention. Such a provision implicitly refers to this “new and additional” criterion, but poor countries have lost a battle by allowing this crucial principle to disappear from the text of the new agreement.

The next few years will be crucial in redressing this ‘non-system’ of climate finance. The Paris Agreement offers several opportunities for the necessary changes to happen, but we need to take them.

Other areas also represent a backslide from previous decisions agreed by UNFCCC Parties. For example, there is no reference in either the Paris agreement or in the decision taken by the COP to “innovative” finance sources–such as taxes on aviation, on international shipping fuels (bunker fuels), a tiny levy on international currency transactions, or a global carbon tax. These internationally raised, managed, and spent funds are some of the only tools available to assure that climate funds are indeed additional to earlier foreign assistance or other budgets, and that they are adequate and predictable. They also can make climate funding much more sustainable politically, since the money should not have to flow through national government coffers.

Big elephants in the room

Even more troubling is the explicit rejection of any kind of liability and compensation for climate impacts due to big polluters. The question of liability has always been the “elephant in the room” in climate negotiations, even when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was first drafted back in 1992. High emitters and rich countries have now made it crystal clear: they won’t pay for the damage they cause to vulnerable populations due to their disproportionate use of the carbon space in the atmosphere. Some of these issues may become clearer in Marrakesh at the 2016 negotiations, but it could be several years more before we see how risk will be spread and irreparable harm addressed.

On a more positive note, the agreement “encourages” Parties not formally defined as developed countries under the UN Climate Convention to provide climate finance voluntarily. This is a big deal, though it may not seems like one. The world has changed considerably in the past 20 years. Now, middle income countries—like China, South Korea, Mexico, and Kuwait—are encouraged to help poorer countries in their efforts to curb emissions and to build climate resilient societies. China has already pledged $3.1 billion to climate efforts in developing countries, to be delivered through South-South financing.

The need for public and grant-based resources for adaptation also is recognized in the Paris Agreement. But without a clear quantified target, such a provision is mainly incantatory. The COP decision to decide a new collective target by 2025 from a floor of $100 billion per year may be quickly made obsolete by the next ten years of stronger climate impacts. And on the mitigation side, staying under the aspirational goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius is certain to require far more funding than the budget suggests. Trillions of dollars will have to be shifted away from carbon intensive and climate vulnerable investments in the coming decades and toward a new low carbon and resilient economy.

But for the poorest and most vulnerable countries climate finance is key to securing a safer and more just future. To hold developed countries accountable for their responsibility in helping those countries fight climate change, a robust accounting and reporting framework under the UNFCCC is paramount. We take up that issue in a series of recommendations released just before Paris. There is also a dire need to have burden-sharing arrangements between developed countries to assure the provision of adequate and predictable climate finance, another central demand of developing nations that has been promised again and again over the years. If there is no appetite or ability to provide national-level targets for finance, then innovative international sources of climate finance are all the more critical.

Reuters/Charles Platiau - The slogan "For the planet" is projected on the Eiffel Tower as part of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) in Paris, France, December 11, 2015

In the current climate finance landscape, each developed country has an interest in maximizing its claimed contribution while putting up the least cash possible, including through non-transparent and “creative“ accounting, and in putting the burden on other developed countries to deliver on their joint financial commitments. The next few years will be crucial in redressing this “non-system” of climate finance. The Paris Agreement offers several opportunities for the necessary changes to happen, but we need to take them.

Read more about the difficulty in accounting for climate finance in the report Toward Mutual Accountability: the 2015 Adaptation Finance Transparency Gap Report, at www.adaptationwatch.org

A sense of measured optimism and achievement emerged from the Paris climate conference. Diplomats, environmentalists, researchers, and other observers mostly felt relieved after years of discussions toward a new international agreement on climate change. Multilateralism had proven it might be up to the task of addressing climate change. But it’s a very mixed picture, and many of us are still trying to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of the agreement, the structure for global action it has established, and the momentum around climate action it created. As George Monbiot put it in the Guardian: “By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle. By comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.”

Reuters/Benoit Tessier - Hundreds of environmentalists arrange their bodies to form a message of hope and peace in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, December 6, 2015, as the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) continues at Le Bourget near the French capital

One area where Paris was a failure was in sorting out how adequate funding will reliably and transparently flow to help developing countries make the transition to a low carbon economy and to assist them in preparing for the impacts of climate change. That funding is fundamental to these nations acting ambitiously in the years ahead—as we all need them to do. Major funding is also needed to help them prepare for, cope with, and recover from the climate risks that are arriving and which lie ahead.

A vague but important promise

To salvage the tumultuous Copenhagen negotiations in 2009, developed countries promised to deliver $100 billion a year by 2020. The original promise was formalized the next year in Cancun. The promise was that the developed nations would provide “scaled up, new and additional, predictable and adequate funding … [with] a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion per year by 2020” to address the needs of developing countries.

There are two parts of the deal in Paris: the main and long-term “Paris Agreement,” and the “Decision” text on how that agreement will come to pass through shorter-term actions. The wording in the Paris Agreement is maddeningly oblique on the Copenhangen/Cancun pledge: “Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention.” It’s not clear which countries (Parties) are delivering how much, and when. The reference to the $100 billion or to any other quantitative target for climate finance is absent, and one would search in vain for clarity in the “Convention,” the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change drafted in Rio back in 1992.

Developed countries justified this omission by the fact that including binding targets for Parties would have made it necessary for the U.S. Senate to ratify the new agreement—instead the agreement as it is allows President Obama to ratify it by executive decree. The text of the agreement only acknowledged that “Such mobilization of climate finance should represent a progression beyond previous efforts.” So it should rise above past efforts, hopefully above the promised $100 billion.

One area where Paris was a failure was in sorting out how adequate funding will reliably and transparently flow to help developing countries make the transition to a low carbon economy and to assist them in preparing for the impacts of climate change.

Rather, the “Decision document” that lays out how the Paris Agreement will come into effect explained that the $100 billion goal would be maintained “through 2025,” but only “in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation,” and that by 2025 they would set a new goal. This is weaker than expected by developing countries who see the $100 billion as a “floor” to be surpassed immediately upon its being achieved by 2020.

Still lacking a definition

It actually gets worse. In the absence of a clear internationally agreed definition of what counts as climate finance, and of methodologies to measure it, many debates continue on what levels of funding are actually flowing to developing countries for climate objectives. This foundational effort needs to be completed before finance flows will build trust.

The Decision text (again of less importance than the Paris Agreement) calls for the development under the UNFCCC of “modalities” to account for financial resources provided to developing countries. It is a step forward that such modalities were slated in the Decision text to be considered by negotiators in November 2018. Such a decision is long overdue: observers–including ourselves–have for many years called for a robust accounting and reporting framework of climate finance under the UN Convention, which is the only globally legitimate forum for such framework to be developed. However in agreeing to postpone to 2018 the formal consideration of such a framework, Parties implicitly accept that we will continue to live in a ‘Wild West’ of climate finance for the next three years, at least. And “considering” proposed modalities in 2018 does not set a deadline for their resolution.

Is it new and/or additional?

Breaking from two decades of environmental treaty-making, the Paris Agreement did not use the term “new and additional” when referring to climate finance. For developing countries negotiators, financial flows provided for climate action should not be diverted international assistance that would have gone for building schools, roads, or hospitals. The language has always been problematic, since many funds are commingled and because climate issues need to be mainstreamed into the rest of development work. The Paris Agreement acknowledged that the provision of climate finance is to be made in continuation of developed countries’ existing obligations under the Convention. Such a provision implicitly refers to this “new and additional” criterion, but poor countries have lost a battle by allowing this crucial principle to disappear from the text of the new agreement.

The next few years will be crucial in redressing this ‘non-system’ of climate finance. The Paris Agreement offers several opportunities for the necessary changes to happen, but we need to take them.

Other areas also represent a backslide from previous decisions agreed by UNFCCC Parties. For example, there is no reference in either the Paris agreement or in the decision taken by the COP to “innovative” finance sources–such as taxes on aviation, on international shipping fuels (bunker fuels), a tiny levy on international currency transactions, or a global carbon tax. These internationally raised, managed, and spent funds are some of the only tools available to assure that climate funds are indeed additional to earlier foreign assistance or other budgets, and that they are adequate and predictable. They also can make climate funding much more sustainable politically, since the money should not have to flow through national government coffers.

Big elephants in the room

Even more troubling is the explicit rejection of any kind of liability and compensation for climate impacts due to big polluters. The question of liability has always been the “elephant in the room” in climate negotiations, even when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was first drafted back in 1992. High emitters and rich countries have now made it crystal clear: they won’t pay for the damage they cause to vulnerable populations due to their disproportionate use of the carbon space in the atmosphere. Some of these issues may become clearer in Marrakesh at the 2016 negotiations, but it could be several years more before we see how risk will be spread and irreparable harm addressed.

On a more positive note, the agreement “encourages” Parties not formally defined as developed countries under the UN Climate Convention to provide climate finance voluntarily. This is a big deal, though it may not seems like one. The world has changed considerably in the past 20 years. Now, middle income countries—like China, South Korea, Mexico, and Kuwait—are encouraged to help poorer countries in their efforts to curb emissions and to build climate resilient societies. China has already pledged $3.1 billion to climate efforts in developing countries, to be delivered through South-South financing.

The need for public and grant-based resources for adaptation also is recognized in the Paris Agreement. But without a clear quantified target, such a provision is mainly incantatory. The COP decision to decide a new collective target by 2025 from a floor of $100 billion per year may be quickly made obsolete by the next ten years of stronger climate impacts. And on the mitigation side, staying under the aspirational goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius is certain to require far more funding than the budget suggests. Trillions of dollars will have to be shifted away from carbon intensive and climate vulnerable investments in the coming decades and toward a new low carbon and resilient economy.

But for the poorest and most vulnerable countries climate finance is key to securing a safer and more just future. To hold developed countries accountable for their responsibility in helping those countries fight climate change, a robust accounting and reporting framework under the UNFCCC is paramount. We take up that issue in a series of recommendations released just before Paris. There is also a dire need to have burden-sharing arrangements between developed countries to assure the provision of adequate and predictable climate finance, another central demand of developing nations that has been promised again and again over the years. If there is no appetite or ability to provide national-level targets for finance, then innovative international sources of climate finance are all the more critical.

Reuters/Charles Platiau - The slogan "For the planet" is projected on the Eiffel Tower as part of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) in Paris, France, December 11, 2015

In the current climate finance landscape, each developed country has an interest in maximizing its claimed contribution while putting up the least cash possible, including through non-transparent and “creative“ accounting, and in putting the burden on other developed countries to deliver on their joint financial commitments. The next few years will be crucial in redressing this “non-system” of climate finance. The Paris Agreement offers several opportunities for the necessary changes to happen, but we need to take them.

Read more about the difficulty in accounting for climate finance in the report Toward Mutual Accountability: the 2015 Adaptation Finance Transparency Gap Report, at www.adaptationwatch.org

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2015/12/18-cop21-paris-climate-talks-us-print-media-roberts?rssid=environment{7A570930-6075-48B2-B1BF-DBB9819DDBD3}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/129001089/0/brookingsrss/topics/environment~The-Paris-climate-talks-according-to-US-print-media-Plenty-of-heat-but-not-so-much-lightThe Paris climate talks according to U.S. print media: Plenty of heat, but not so much light

Over the course of two weeks, we tracked electronic media coverage of the Paris climate talks—and its absence – in the four highest-circulation print news sources in the U.S.: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, theLos Angeles Times, and USA Today. Together, they published a total of 424 articles on the climate change conference—a remarkable number. But not all of that coverage was instructive, and many key issues in the negotiations were scarcely mentioned. Citizens informed by the U.S. print media gained only a partial understanding of the issues at the core of the climate change negotiations.

Reuters/Jacky Naegelen - Journalists work in the press room during the opening day of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 at Le Bourget, near Paris, France, November 30, 2015

Quality press coverage of the UN climate negotiations is crucial for the public to understand what was at stake in Paris and what was accomplished. What were negotiators actually arguing over? What did they decide? Is the final document as important as the politicians assembled in Paris said it was?

Who covered the talks most

The New York Times towered over the others in its overall coverage, with a total of 249 articles related to the conference during the span of just a week. It was followed by the Los Angeles Times with 106 articles (less than half as many), and then USA Today and TheWall Street Journal with 37 and 32 articles, respectively (approximately one-seventh and one-eighth the number of The New York Times).

To put these numbers into context, we compared them to mentions of “ISIS” in each of these four papers on November 14 and 15—the two days following the attacks in Paris. During those two days, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today ran an average of 10 and 18 articles per day on ISIS, respectively, yet on climate change each had a daily average of only two articles. By contrast, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times had quite similar numbers between ISIS post-Paris attacks and their U.N. negotiations averages.

Over the span of the two weeks from Sunday, November 29 to Sunday, December 13, newspapers had the greatest coverage of the talks at the beginning and at the end. During the first three days of the conference, they collectively published an average of 46 articles per day. During the last three days of the conference (December 10-12), the four papers averaged 34 articles per day. During the three days in the middle of the two weeks (Dec. 5-7), coverage dropped to an average of 17 articles per day. In other words, when the pomp went away, so did the coverage—just as the negotiations got going in earnest. And coverage did not pick up again until there was something easily graspable to report on at the end of week two.

FIGURE 1

Source: Authors’ calculations.

What they wrote about

Climate change is a complex subject—one the media has largely struggled to adequately report on in the past—and these negotiations were no exception. Understanding what happened on certain key topics requires background knowledge that may be hard to convey in a short article. The conference was a slow process carried out over two weeks, rather than a singular event that could be encompassed easily in a single article. While the rallies across the globe and the speeches by world leaders at the start of the talks were easier to cover, the middle and latter portions of the conference were more complicated.

To compensate, many journalists chose to focus on specific countries or people—world leaders such as President Barack Obama, celebrities such as Bill Gates—and the particular things they said or actions they took. Others tried to capture attention by linking their reporting to relevant world news, such as the Syrian refugee crisis or the terrorist attacks in Paris. Still other writers framed the negotiations as having a central conflict—identifying the biggest sticking points or disputes between countries and leaders. These approaches followed common journalistic norms of focusing on individuals and the conflict between them, leading to a somewhat piecemeal representation of the conference.

As a result, most articles did not focus on the major issues being discussed in Paris. They gave broad updates on the progress of the negotiations, the speeches and positions of President Obama and other major world leaders, and the actions or stances of other leading nations. In addition, they discussed the environmental effects of climate change, of which the greatest number focused on air pollution in India and China. Still others relayed general information about the talks, or focused on business, civil society, energy sources or clean energy technology, and U.S. domestic policy.

Many of the main issues underlying the negotiations were not covered in depth. In particular, some of the key issues to be resolved at the conference revolved around the world’s least-developed nations—those that are considered to be the most vulnerable to the early impacts of climate change due to their lower levels of economic development, conflict, and poverty, yet have done little to contribute to the problem. Of articles about other nations and world leaders outside the U.S., 35 focused on individual developed countries and 23 were about major emerging economies (India, China, and Brazil), while only seven articles discussed Africa and other groups of developing countries. No leaders from these areas were mentioned.

FIGURE 2

Source: Authors’ calculations.

The subject matter that articles addressed shifted as the week went on. Coverage of the first day reflected civil society activism during the worldwide day of action that coincided with the kickoff to the conference. Articles on the second day focused on President Obama and the record-breaking number of world leaders gathered in Paris to give speeches. After that, coverage drifted, with many articles only tangentially related to the talks themselves and instead focusing on various other subjects related to climate change, with just a line or two mentioning that the talks were going on. It wasn’t until the conference drew to a close that the press re-focused on the progress of the talks, especially as a draft text was released on December 10and an agreement reached on the 12.

FIGURE 3

Source: Authors’ calculations.

The stories not told

Looking across the 424 articles, some of the core issues at stake in the negotiations were missing or downplayed. These included:

the allocation of responsibility between developed and developing countries (five articles)

the social and human rights issues related to the effects of climate change (13 articles)

the contentious issue of helping those facing irreparable loss and damage from climate change (one article)

the transparent reporting of the billions of dollars of climate finance flowing from the global North to the South (three articles).

The climate negotiations hinged upon issues like these, yet while they were mentioned, they were treated as side issues in most articles

This is a shame, because coverage of the conference sets the stage for public understanding of what was accomplished in Paris and what matters in the coming years. While reporters made valiant efforts to chronicle the climate change negotiations, the average reader came away from the talks with a piecemeal understanding dominated by a few big names and little in-depth knowledge of many of the main issues the conference attempted to address. Citizens informed by the U.S. print media will have a partial, and quite inadequate, understanding of the issues at the core of the climate change negotiations. They will know there was an agreement, but won’t really know what it entails, where it falls short, or why they should care. Given the transformation needed in American society away from fossil fuels and energy waste, this was a lost opportunity for education about the tough issues raised by this existential crisis.

Over the course of two weeks, we tracked electronic media coverage of the Paris climate talks—and its absence – in the four highest-circulation print news sources in the U.S.: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, theLos Angeles Times, and USA Today. Together, they published a total of 424 articles on the climate change conference—a remarkable number. But not all of that coverage was instructive, and many key issues in the negotiations were scarcely mentioned. Citizens informed by the U.S. print media gained only a partial understanding of the issues at the core of the climate change negotiations.

Reuters/Jacky Naegelen - Journalists work in the press room during the opening day of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 at Le Bourget, near Paris, France, November 30, 2015

Quality press coverage of the UN climate negotiations is crucial for the public to understand what was at stake in Paris and what was accomplished. What were negotiators actually arguing over? What did they decide? Is the final document as important as the politicians assembled in Paris said it was?

Who covered the talks most

The New York Times towered over the others in its overall coverage, with a total of 249 articles related to the conference during the span of just a week. It was followed by the Los Angeles Times with 106 articles (less than half as many), and then USA Today and TheWall Street Journal with 37 and 32 articles, respectively (approximately one-seventh and one-eighth the number of The New York Times).

To put these numbers into context, we compared them to mentions of “ISIS” in each of these four papers on November 14 and 15—the two days following the attacks in Paris. During those two days, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today ran an average of 10 and 18 articles per day on ISIS, respectively, yet on climate change each had a daily average of only two articles. By contrast, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times had quite similar numbers between ISIS post-Paris attacks and their U.N. negotiations averages.

Over the span of the two weeks from Sunday, November 29 to Sunday, December 13, newspapers had the greatest coverage of the talks at the beginning and at the end. During the first three days of the conference, they collectively published an average of 46 articles per day. During the last three days of the conference (December 10-12), the four papers averaged 34 articles per day. During the three days in the middle of the two weeks (Dec. 5-7), coverage dropped to an average of 17 articles per day. In other words, when the pomp went away, so did the coverage—just as the negotiations got going in earnest. And coverage did not pick up again until there was something easily graspable to report on at the end of week two.

FIGURE 1

Source: Authors’ calculations.

What they wrote about

Climate change is a complex subject—one the media has largely struggled to adequately report on in the past—and these negotiations were no exception. Understanding what happened on certain key topics requires background knowledge that may be hard to convey in a short article. The conference was a slow process carried out over two weeks, rather than a singular event that could be encompassed easily in a single article. While the rallies across the globe and the speeches by world leaders at the start of the talks were easier to cover, the middle and latter portions of the conference were more complicated.

To compensate, many journalists chose to focus on specific countries or people—world leaders such as President Barack Obama, celebrities such as Bill Gates—and the particular things they said or actions they took. Others tried to capture attention by linking their reporting to relevant world news, such as the Syrian refugee crisis or the terrorist attacks in Paris. Still other writers framed the negotiations as having a central conflict—identifying the biggest sticking points or disputes between countries and leaders. These approaches followed common journalistic norms of focusing on individuals and the conflict between them, leading to a somewhat piecemeal representation of the conference.

As a result, most articles did not focus on the major issues being discussed in Paris. They gave broad updates on the progress of the negotiations, the speeches and positions of President Obama and other major world leaders, and the actions or stances of other leading nations. In addition, they discussed the environmental effects of climate change, of which the greatest number focused on air pollution in India and China. Still others relayed general information about the talks, or focused on business, civil society, energy sources or clean energy technology, and U.S. domestic policy.

Many of the main issues underlying the negotiations were not covered in depth. In particular, some of the key issues to be resolved at the conference revolved around the world’s least-developed nations—those that are considered to be the most vulnerable to the early impacts of climate change due to their lower levels of economic development, conflict, and poverty, yet have done little to contribute to the problem. Of articles about other nations and world leaders outside the U.S., 35 focused on individual developed countries and 23 were about major emerging economies (India, China, and Brazil), while only seven articles discussed Africa and other groups of developing countries. No leaders from these areas were mentioned.

FIGURE 2

Source: Authors’ calculations.

The subject matter that articles addressed shifted as the week went on. Coverage of the first day reflected civil society activism during the worldwide day of action that coincided with the kickoff to the conference. Articles on the second day focused on President Obama and the record-breaking number of world leaders gathered in Paris to give speeches. After that, coverage drifted, with many articles only tangentially related to the talks themselves and instead focusing on various other subjects related to climate change, with just a line or two mentioning that the talks were going on. It wasn’t until the conference drew to a close that the press re-focused on the progress of the talks, especially as a draft text was released on December 10and an agreement reached on the 12.

FIGURE 3

Source: Authors’ calculations.

The stories not told

Looking across the 424 articles, some of the core issues at stake in the negotiations were missing or downplayed. These included:

the allocation of responsibility between developed and developing countries (five articles)

the social and human rights issues related to the effects of climate change (13 articles)

the contentious issue of helping those facing irreparable loss and damage from climate change (one article)

the transparent reporting of the billions of dollars of climate finance flowing from the global North to the South (three articles).

The climate negotiations hinged upon issues like these, yet while they were mentioned, they were treated as side issues in most articles

This is a shame, because coverage of the conference sets the stage for public understanding of what was accomplished in Paris and what matters in the coming years. While reporters made valiant efforts to chronicle the climate change negotiations, the average reader came away from the talks with a piecemeal understanding dominated by a few big names and little in-depth knowledge of many of the main issues the conference attempted to address. Citizens informed by the U.S. print media will have a partial, and quite inadequate, understanding of the issues at the core of the climate change negotiations. They will know there was an agreement, but won’t really know what it entails, where it falls short, or why they should care. Given the transformation needed in American society away from fossil fuels and energy waste, this was a lost opportunity for education about the tough issues raised by this existential crisis.

Over the past half century, the total volume of water used by people has nearly tripled, outpacing the global population increase. Regional crises related to water quantity and quality is a growing problem. Although water scarcity is an obstacle to maintaining supplies for human consumption, agriculture, industry, and ecosystems, in many regions access to freshwater is also a matter of national security.

Reuters/Eliana Aponte - Tanks are filled with water in a poor neighborhood in Mexico City

The need for assured freshwater supplies has led to transboundary water competition, human migration, and political conflict. Properly identifying the underlying causes of freshwater vulnerability is critical to developing successful strategies and policy interventions needed to address future challenges. Research conducted by the Global Freshwater Initiative (GFI) at Stanford University attempts to do just that.

Four categories of freshwater vulnerability

Using a comprehensive assessment approach, groups of countries with similar vulnerabilities are identified, thereby providing insights into both the nature of unique patterns of water supply problems and what could be successfully-targeted policy interventions. Freshwater vulnerabilities fall into four categories: demand, endowment, infrastructure, and institutions. These are quantified using 19 characteristics (figure 1).

Figure 1: Characteristics of freshwater supply vulnerability used as the basis for analyzing 119 low-income countries throughout the world. This figure is based on one in the recent paper: Padowski, J. C., Gorelick, S. M., Thompson, B. H., Rozelle, S., and Fendorf, S. (2015). Assessment of human–natural system characteristics influencing global freshwater supply vulnerability. Environmental Research Letters, 10(10), 104014.

We analyzed vulnerability characteristics in 119 low-income countries (those with less than $10,725 per capita per year). Our assessment shows that all of these countriesexhibit a moderate level of vulnerability in at least one characteristic, with institutional vulnerability being dominant in 37 percent of nations, most frequently in the form of governmental corruption (lack of transparency).

Regional characteristics and patterns

Regional characteristics and differences exist. In northern Africa and South Asia vulnerability results from low volumes of renewable freshwater, high freshwater dependency on neighboring countries, and poor access to sanitation that threatens freshwater supply. Latin American and Southeast Asian countries, meanwhile, are dominated by demand vulnerability as a consequence of large urban populations and a substantial amount of renewable freshwater being devoted to ecosystem maintenance.

The study identified 25 nations having a set of critical and severe freshwater supply vulnerabilities (figure 2). Of greatest concern are Jordan, Djibouti, and Yemen. These three countries have in common: low rainfall, limited surface water storage, excessive groundwater mining, high dependence on transboundary waters involving water-use of their neighbors, and importation of most food calories (virtual water) due to an inability to maintain sovereign food security. Djibouti and Yemen also suffer from significant government corruption (lack of transparency). While this is not the case for Jordan, in terms of freshwater supply it is still among the most severely vulnerable nations. Supply vulnerability is a particularly growing concern as Jordan has been serving as host to over 600,000 Syrian refugees since the beginning of the Syrian civil war. This large population influx further exacerbates water scarcity and demand challenges in Jordan. Syria’s damming of the headwater tributaries of the Yarmouk River before it flows into Jordan is a prime example of Jordan’s water supply vulnerability problems.

Figure 2: Number of freshwater supply vulnerability characteristics and dominant cause of vulnerability by country. The degree of vulnerability is reflected by the extruded height. The dominant type of vulnerability is shown by color. This figure is based on the one appearing the recent paper: Padowski, J. C., Gorelick, S. M., Thompson, B. H., Rozelle, S., and Fendorf, S. (2015). Assessment of human–natural system characteristics influencing global freshwater supply vulnerability. Environmental Research Letters, 10(10), 104014.

Similar patterns of freshwater vulnerability are found among countries that in some cases are in close geographic proximity and, more surprisingly, in other cases are not. Examples of the former include Iran, Egypt, and Algeria, which are in the same general region and experience similar supply vulnerability characteristics. They each have relatively large urban populations, limited renewable freshwater, steady aquifer depletion, and exhibit a distinct lack of governmental transparency. On the other hand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Guatemala are distant from one another, yet they have similar attributes that make their freshwater supplies vulnerable. Each of these countries has relatively high population density and high numbers of endangered species that need to be protected, so they are dealing with high environmental and domestic sector demands. Vietnam and Sri Lanka lack government transparency and mechanisms for enforcing water-use regulations.

Authors

Over the past half century, the total volume of water used by people has nearly tripled, outpacing the global population increase. Regional crises related to water quantity and quality is a growing problem. Although water scarcity is an obstacle to maintaining supplies for human consumption, agriculture, industry, and ecosystems, in many regions access to freshwater is also a matter of national security.

Reuters/Eliana Aponte - Tanks are filled with water in a poor neighborhood in Mexico City

The need for assured freshwater supplies has led to transboundary water competition, human migration, and political conflict. Properly identifying the underlying causes of freshwater vulnerability is critical to developing successful strategies and policy interventions needed to address future challenges. Research conducted by the Global Freshwater Initiative (GFI) at Stanford University attempts to do just that.

Four categories of freshwater vulnerability

Using a comprehensive assessment approach, groups of countries with similar vulnerabilities are identified, thereby providing insights into both the nature of unique patterns of water supply problems and what could be successfully-targeted policy interventions. Freshwater vulnerabilities fall into four categories: demand, endowment, infrastructure, and institutions. These are quantified using 19 characteristics (figure 1).

Figure 1: Characteristics of freshwater supply vulnerability used as the basis for analyzing 119 low-income countries throughout the world. This figure is based on one in the recent paper: Padowski, J. C., Gorelick, S. M., Thompson, B. H., Rozelle, S., and Fendorf, S. (2015). Assessment of human–natural system characteristics influencing global freshwater supply vulnerability. Environmental Research Letters, 10(10), 104014.

We analyzed vulnerability characteristics in 119 low-income countries (those with less than $10,725 per capita per year). Our assessment shows that all of these countriesexhibit a moderate level of vulnerability in at least one characteristic, with institutional vulnerability being dominant in 37 percent of nations, most frequently in the form of governmental corruption (lack of transparency).

Regional characteristics and patterns

Regional characteristics and differences exist. In northern Africa and South Asia vulnerability results from low volumes of renewable freshwater, high freshwater dependency on neighboring countries, and poor access to sanitation that threatens freshwater supply. Latin American and Southeast Asian countries, meanwhile, are dominated by demand vulnerability as a consequence of large urban populations and a substantial amount of renewable freshwater being devoted to ecosystem maintenance.

The study identified 25 nations having a set of critical and severe freshwater supply vulnerabilities (figure 2). Of greatest concern are Jordan, Djibouti, and Yemen. These three countries have in common: low rainfall, limited surface water storage, excessive groundwater mining, high dependence on transboundary waters involving water-use of their neighbors, and importation of most food calories (virtual water) due to an inability to maintain sovereign food security. Djibouti and Yemen also suffer from significant government corruption (lack of transparency). While this is not the case for Jordan, in terms of freshwater supply it is still among the most severely vulnerable nations. Supply vulnerability is a particularly growing concern as Jordan has been serving as host to over 600,000 Syrian refugees since the beginning of the Syrian civil war. This large population influx further exacerbates water scarcity and demand challenges in Jordan. Syria’s damming of the headwater tributaries of the Yarmouk River before it flows into Jordan is a prime example of Jordan’s water supply vulnerability problems.

Figure 2: Number of freshwater supply vulnerability characteristics and dominant cause of vulnerability by country. The degree of vulnerability is reflected by the extruded height. The dominant type of vulnerability is shown by color. This figure is based on the one appearing the recent paper: Padowski, J. C., Gorelick, S. M., Thompson, B. H., Rozelle, S., and Fendorf, S. (2015). Assessment of human–natural system characteristics influencing global freshwater supply vulnerability. Environmental Research Letters, 10(10), 104014.

Similar patterns of freshwater vulnerability are found among countries that in some cases are in close geographic proximity and, more surprisingly, in other cases are not. Examples of the former include Iran, Egypt, and Algeria, which are in the same general region and experience similar supply vulnerability characteristics. They each have relatively large urban populations, limited renewable freshwater, steady aquifer depletion, and exhibit a distinct lack of governmental transparency. On the other hand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Guatemala are distant from one another, yet they have similar attributes that make their freshwater supplies vulnerable. Each of these countries has relatively high population density and high numbers of endangered species that need to be protected, so they are dealing with high environmental and domestic sector demands. Vietnam and Sri Lanka lack government transparency and mechanisms for enforcing water-use regulations.